Kyffin Williams - Welsh Chapel Above Deiniolen [1972]

Kyffin Williams - Welsh Chapel Above Deiniolen [1972], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Sir John "Kyffin" Williams (Llangefni, Anglesey, May 9, 1918 – Pwllfanogl, September 1, 2006) was a Welsh landscape painter who lived at Pwllfanogl, Llanfairpwll on the Island of Anglesey. Williams is widely regarded as the defining artist of Wales during the 20th century. His works typically drew inspiration from the Welsh landscape and farmlands. His works appear in many galleries all over Britain and is on permanent exhibition in Oriel Ynys Mon, Anglesey. He was President of the Royal Cambrian Academy and was appointed a member of the Royal Academy in 1974. He was awarded the OBE for his services to the arts in 1982 and a KBE in 1999.

Millard Sheets - Tenement Flats [1933-34]

Millard Sheets - Tenement Flats [1933-34], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

These ramshackle tenements were home to poor families in the Bunker Hill neighbourhood of downtown Los Angeles during the Great Depression. The artist failed to show that just to the left of this view a cable car line called Angels Flight offered a ride up the steep hill. In the painting a lone figure trudges up steps toward once elegant Victorian mansions that had degenerated into boarding-houses. Millard Sheets (Pomona, California, 1907 - Gualala, California, 1989), an up-and-coming young California artist, enjoyed drawing and painting the people and houses of this colourful neighbourhood. Here he shows women who have finished washing and hanging out their laundry in the days before electric appliances lightened these chores. Now the women stop to gossip while leaning on stair rails, or sit in the shade to avoid the hot afternoon sun.

[Oil on canvas, 102.1 x 127.6 cm]

Adolphe Ladurner - The Winter Palace, part of the White (Armorial) Hall [1838]

The Winter Palace, part of the White (Armorial) Hall [1838], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Adolphe Ladurner (1798 - 1856) was a French painter.

[Oil on canvas, 69 x 96 cm]

Alphonse Mucha - Svantovit Celebration on the Island of Rügen [1912]

Alphonse Mucha - Svantovit Celebration on the Island of Rügen [1912], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Alphonse Mucha was born in 1860 in Ivancice, Moravia, which is near the city of Brno in the modern Czech Republic. It was a small town, and for all intents and purposes life was closer to the 18th than the 19th century. Though Mucha is supposed to have started drawing before he was walking, his early years were spent as a choirboy and amateur musician. It wasn't until he finished high school, needing two extra years to accomplish that onerous task that he came to realise that living people were responsible for some of the art he admired in the local churches. That epiphany made him determined to become a painter, despite his father's efforts in securing him respectable employment as a clerk in the local court.

When the Germans invaded Czechoslovakia, he was still influential enough to be one of the first people they arrested. He returned home after a Gestapo questioning session and died shortly thereafter on July 14, 1939.

[Egg tempera on canvas, 610 x 810 cm]

Alan Cotton - North Cornwall, Ebb Tide at Yoel Mouth

Alan Cotton - North Cornwall, Ebb Tide at Yoel Mouth, a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Born in Redditch, Worcestershire in 1936, Alan Cotton began painting as a small child with brushes made from his mother’s hair. After attending the local Grammar School he went on to Redditch and Bournville Schools of Art. He then joined the Painting School of Birmingham College of Art and then on to the University of Birmingham. In the late sixties he moved to Devon and there began a series of large paintings of the Hartland Coastline in North Devon many of which have found their way into public collections.

[Oil on canvas, 71 x 91 cm]

Dewey Albinson - Northern Minnesota Mine [1934]

Dewey Albinson - Northern Minnesota Mine [1934], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Dewey Albinson was the son of Swedish immigrants. He began painting at the age of fifteen and studied at the Minneapolis School of Art (now the Minneapolis College of Art and Design), the Art Students League in New York, and abroad. Although he lived in various parts of the United States, Canada, and Mexico, Albinson seemed to favour Minnesota in his works. In addition to his choice of Minnesota as a subject of his art, Albinson was also involved in the arts of Minnesota. He was Director of the St. Paul School of Art (now the Minnesota Museum of American Art) from 1926-29, a member of the Public Works of Art Project in 1933 and served as the director of the state educational division for the Works Progress Administration in 1935.

[Oil on canvas, 101.6 x 127.2 cm]

Eric Detthow - Still Life with Blue Pitcher and Wine Glass [1924]

Eric Detthow - Still Life with Blue Pitcher and Wine Glass [1924], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Eric Detthow (1888 - 1952) was a Swedish artist.

[Oil on panel, 27 x 35 cm]

Nils von Dardel - Young Man and Girl [1919]

Nils von Dardel - Young Man and Girl [1919], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Nils von Dardel (Bettna, 1888 - New York, 1943) was a Swedish artist. Von Dardel led a self-destructive, itinerant and hectic life. Many of his later paintings are portraits of people he met on his travels. Around the time of the outbreak of World War II, the Liljevalchs Konsthall in Stockholm mounted a retrospective of his work; this was his final popular breakthrough in his native country. 

[Watercolour, 47 x 31 cm]

Vincent Van Gogh - First Steps [1889]

Vincent Van Gogh - First Steps [1889], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

In autumn and winter 1889–90, while a voluntary patient at the asylum in Saint-Rémy, Van Gogh painted twenty-one copies after Millet, an artist he greatly admired. He considered his copies "improvisations" or "translations" akin to a musician's interpretation of a composer's work. He let the black and white images, whether prints, reproductions, or, as here, a photograph that his brother Theo had sent "pose as subject," then he would "improvise colour on it." For this work of January 1890, Van Gogh squared up a photograph of Millet's First Steps, which he then transferred to the canvas.

[Oil on canvas, 72.4 x 91.2 cm]

Henry Bacon - First Sight of Land [1877]

Henry Bacon - First Sight of Land [1877], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Late-nineteenth-century Americans' familiarity with modern tourism was abetted by the advent of regular transatlantic routes, faster and more comfortable vessels, and reduced fares. Here, Bacon (American, 1839 – 1912), who made many transatlantic crossings, tells a story of shipboard life on the luxurious French mail steamer the Péreire. The prominent mast indicates that even steam-powered liners used auxiliary sails to take advantage of good winds and reduce fuel consumption. The well-dressed young passenger, who has cast aside her tartan lap robe and book and risen from her chair, proclaims that women were venturing abroad in greater numbers during the 1870s than ever before to finish their education and prepare for marriage. Bacon offers only a fragmentary, open-ended narrative: because the book is a salmon-covered paperback associated with French publishers, the woman may be returning to America, yet her excitement suggests she is arriving in Europe.

[Oil on canvas, 73 x 50.5 cm]

Theodore Gudin - Storm in the Sea [1832]

Theodore Gudin - Storm in the Sea [1832], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Baron Jean Antoine Théodore de Gudin (Paris, August 15, 1802, - Boulogne-sur-Seine, April 11, 1880) was a French painter of the 19th century. He especially painted navy scenes, and was a pupil of Girodet-Trioson. Gudin was one of the first Peintres de la Marine, at the court of Louis-Philippe and Napolean III.

[Oil on canvas, 32 x 47 cm]

Paulus Constantin La Fargue - The Grote Markt at The Hague [1760]

Paulus Constantin La Fargue - The Grote Markt at The Hague [1760], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

The market square (Grote Markt) is shown from the Prinsengracht. On the extreme left is the Groot Boterhuis (the former butter market), on the wall of which are various sale bills. In the centre, beyond the houses (most of which have been rebuilt), are the tower and roof of the choir of the Grote Kerk (St Jacobskerk).

La Fargue (1729-1782) was born and worked in The Hague. In 1768 he was recorded as a pupil at the Academy there. He was a landscape and topographical painter. He was the most prolific member of a family of topographical artists which also included his brothers Jacob Elias, Isaac Louis and Karel, and his sister Maria Margaretha. As well as paintings, he made topographical watercolours and series of etchings and book illustrations.

[Oil on mahogany, 57.6 x 75.9 cm]

Michelangelo - The Entombment [c.1500-01]

Michelangelo - The Entombment [c.1500-01], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

This unfinished painting shows Christ's body being carried to his tomb. There is some disagreement over the identity of the various figures represented. Saint John the Evangelist is usually shown in red with long hair, and may be the figure on the left carrying Christ. The others are probably Nicodemus, and Joseph of Arimathaea who gave up his tomb for Jesus. The kneeling figure to the left is probably Mary Magdalene and the woman at the back right is a Holy Woman (Mary Salome). The Virgin is prepared in outline in the bottom right corner.

The picture came from a collection in Rome, and is thought to be connected with payments made to Michelangelo between 1501 and 1502 relating to an altarpiece for Sant Agostino in Rome which he failed to deliver. This would explain the unfinished state of this painting.

The Entombment is generally accepted to be by Michelangelo, since the treatment of the figures links closely with other works by him of this period. The kneeling figure on the left appears to meditate on something in her raised hand. A drawing by Michelangelo in the Louvre, Paris, is clearly a preparatory study for this figure and shows her with the crown of thorns and the nails with which Christ had been crucified.

[Oil on wood, 161.7 x 149.8 cm]

Claude Monet - Women in the Garden [c.1866]

Claude Monet - Women in the Garden [c.1866], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Oil on canvas, 255 x 205 mm]

Paul Hugues - Women in the Park

Paul Hugues - Women in the Park, a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Paul Hugues (1891 – 1972) was a French painter and sculptor.

Joseph Mallord William Turner - The Parting of Hero and Leander [1837]

Joseph Mallord William Turner - The Parting of Hero and Leander [1837], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

This painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1837. The ancient Greek grammarian and poet Musaeus is most famous for his poem on the lovers Hero and Leander. Leander swam the Hellespont to join Hero. When he drowned, she flung herself into the sea.

[Oil on canvas, 146 x 236 cm]

Alfred Sisley - The Seine at Port-Marly [1875]

Alfred Sisley - The Seine at Port-Marly [1875], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Sisley was fascinated by the river Seine and its small boats and barges. In 1875 he turned his attention to a stretch of the river to the west of Paris, painting the towns of Port-Marly and Marly-le-Roi, where he lived from 1875 to 1877. The small boat in the foreground is piled with sand cleared from the river bed to keep the channel open for the many barges that sailed between Le Havre and Paris. The farm buildings were on an island in the middle of the Seine between Bougival and Port-Marly. Sisley probably painted the scene from a boat on the river, just as Monet, active at the same time, had a floating studio at Argenteuil. Sisley signed the painting a second time after his original signature was covered by its first owner's frame.

[Oil on canvas, 54.6 x 65.1 cm]

Clement Rollins Grant - Beautiful Music

Clement Rollins Grant - Beautiful Music, a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Primarily known as a figure and landscape painter, Clement Rollins Grant was born in Freeport, Maine in 1848. At the age of eighteen, he travelled to Europe, spending time in Great Britain and France. Grant worked in Portland, Maine, before establishing a studio at 12 West Street in Boston by 1882. He was a member of the Boston Art Club, where his works were exhibited between 1877 and 1905. He died in 1893 in Boston, Massachusetts.

[Oil on canvas, 43.5 x 53.5 cm]

Peter Ilsted - Interior with Two Girls [1904]

Peter Ilsted - Interior with Two Girls [1904], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Peter Ilsted (1861 - 1933) was a leading Danish artist and printmaker. Ilsted was a great success in his lifetime and won many awards and accolades for his work. His achievements in mezzotints were revolutionary. Some of his mezzotints, most of which were created in black as well as colour editions, are considered among the greatest ever made.

[Oil on canvas, 49 x 43 cm]

Jean-Baptiste Corot - The Solitude, Recollection of Vigen, Limousin [1866]

The Solitude, Recollection of Vigen, Limousin [1866], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

This canvas is one of a group of "souvenirs" (recollections) that Corot painted towards the end of his life in which he combined an observation of the French woodland landscape with recollections of various places in Italy. In these works Corot aimed to express the emotions aroused by the contemplation of nature rather than to depict a specific place. Solitude was painted a few months after the death of his great friend Constant Dutilleux and the painting is imbued with an air of melancholy expressed through a harmonious combination of greens, blues and greys. The woman in the centre of the composition is a modern reinterpretation of the personification of Melancholy, seemingly evoking a Golden Age that has now passed. Exhibited at the 1866 Salon, Solitude was acquired by the Empress Eugenia de Montijo for her private collection.

[Oil on canvas, 95 x 130 cm]

Nikolay Nikolaevich Karazin - Russian Troops Taking Samarkand in 1868 [1888]

Russian Troops Taking Samarkand in 1868 [1888], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Nikolay Nikolaevich Karazin (Kharkov, 1842 - Gatchina, 1908) was a Russian military officer, painter and writer. He is mostly known for his paintings depicting wars and exotic places. Karazin became known mostly as a painter and illustrator. He painted many large canvases devoted to battles and especially military actions in Turkestan. He was a prolific book illustrator and one of the most notable authors of the postcards.

[Oil on canvas, 179 x 310 cm]

Childe Hassam - Old House [1917]

Childe Hassam - Old House [1917], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Oil on canvas, 20 x 30 inches]

Arthur Clifton Goodwin - Park Street Church, Boston [1908]

Arthur Clifton Goodwin - Park Street Church, Boston [1908], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Arthur Clifton Goodwin has been called the painter par excellence of Boston. In a career spanning twenty-nine years this gifted, self-taught artist not only painted Boston in every mood and every weather, but following his 1921 move to New York he also painted the parks and skyscrapers of that metropolis.

Goodwin was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire in 1864 and was raised in the Chelsea section of Boston. He worked as a banker and a paper salesman before deciding at the age of thirty-nine to be a professional artist. After a failed marriage, Goodwin returned to Boston in 1928. Kronberg persuaded him to come to Paris to study the French Impressionists, but on May 19, 1929 on the eve of his departure, Goodwin died. Friends discovered him in his room in the North End, his suitcase packed and his tickets in his pocket. While not allied with any particular school or movement, Goodwin achieved a unique place in American art history as a painter of cityscapes characterised by strong color and an assured, painterly manner.

[Oil on canvas, 30 x 34 inches]

Ivan Aivazovsky - Parade of the Black Sea Fleet

Ivan Aivazovsky - Parade of the Black Sea Fleet, a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Throughout his lifetime, Aivazovsky (Feodosiya, July 29, 1817 - Feodosiya , May 5, 1900) contributed over 6,000 paintings to the art world, ranging from his early landscapes of the Crimean countryside to the seascapes and coastal scenes for which he is most famous. Aivazovsky was especially effective at developing the play of light in his paintings, sometimes applying layers of colour to create a transparent quality, a technique for which they are highly admired. 

Although he produced many portraits and landscapes, over half of all of Aivazovsky’s paintings are realistic depictions of coastal scenes and seascapes. He is most remembered for his beautifully melodramatic renditions of the seascapes of which he painted the most. Many of his later works depict the painful heartbreak of soldiers at battle or lost at sea, with a soft celestial body taunting of hope from behind the clouds. His artistic technique centers on his ability to render the realistic shimmer of the water against the light of the subject in the painting, be it the full moon, the sunrise, or battleships in flames. Many of his paintings also illustrate his adeptness at filling the sky with light, be it the diffuse light of a full moon through fog, or the orange glow of the sun gleaming through the clouds. 

[Oil on canvas, 131 x 249 cm]

Alexey Korin - Barge Haulers [1897]

Alexey Korin - Barge Haulers [1897], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Alexey Korin (1865 - 1923) was a Russian painter. The main themes of his painting were Russian landscapes, genre-scenes, portraits, and interiors. The paintings of Alexey Korin are contained in the the State Tretyakov Gallery and the State Russian Museum as well as in numerous museums and private collections.

[Oil on canvas, 84 x 174 cm]

Claude-Oscar Monet - Snow Scene at Argenteuil [1875]

Claude-Oscar Monet - Snow Scene at Argenteuil [1875], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Monet spent most of the 1870s in the town of Argenteuil, which is on the Seine just to the north-west of Paris. During this period, leisure activities such as boating made the town increasingly popular with day-trippers from the capital. The exceptionally snowy winter of 1874-75 inspired Monet to paint 18 views of Argenteuil under the snow. Many of them, like this work, focus on the boulevard Saint-Denis where Monet was living. The scene shows the boulevard running towards the Seine, looking away from the railway station. It is a relatively large work, which sacrifices details in favour of atmosphere. Its predominantly monochrome palette of blues and greys conveys to perfection the bleakness of an overcast winter's afternoon.

[Oil on canvas, 71.1 x 91.4 cm]

Helen Bradley - Our First Morning in Blackpool

Helen Bradley - Our First Morning in Blackpool, a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Helen Bradley (November 20, 1900 – July 19, 1979) was an artist born in the village of Lees, England. Her oil paintings vividly depict Lancashire life as it was between 1900 and 1910. Helen was born at 58 High Street, Lees. She began to paint when she was in her sixties. She painted mainly with her hands and fingers. Her paintings now fetch tens of thousands at auction. A series of books illustrated with these naive paintings topped the bestseller lists in the early 1970s. She died shortly before she was due to be honoured with an MBE.

Jean-Léon Gérôme - Moorish Bath [1870]

Jean-Léon Gérôme - Moorish Bath [1870], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Oil on canvas, 50.8 x 40.6 cm]

Antti Favén - The Break [1941]

Antti Favén - The Break [1941], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

George Antti Favén (Helsinki, May 20, 1882 - Stockholm, October 17, 1948) was a Finnish painter.

[Oil on canvas, glued on board, 81 x 63 cm]

Isaac Levitan - Evening Bells [1892]

Isaac Levitan - Evening Bells [1892], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Isaac Levitan (Wirballen, August 30, 1860 - Crimea, August 4, 1900) was a classical Russian landscape painter. Levitan's work was a profound response to the lyrical charm of the Russian landscape. Though his late work displayed familiarity with Impressionism, his palette was generally muted, and his tendencies were more naturalistic and poetic than optical or scientific. Levitan spent the last year of his life at Chekhov’s home in Crimea. In spite of the effects of a terminal illness, his last works are increasingly filled with light. They reflect tranquility and the eternal beauty of Russian nature.

[Oil on canvas, 87 x 108 cm]

Robert Alott - Southern Capriccio [1891]

Robert Alott - Southern Capriccio [1891], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Robert Alott (Graz, 1850 - Vienna, 1910) was an Austrian artist.

[Oil on canvas, 95 x 118 cm]

Ascan Lutteroth - Mazzorbo, near Venice

Ascan Lutteroth - Mazzorbo, near Venice, a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Ascan Lutteroth (Hamburg, 1842 - 1923) was a German artist.

[Oil on canvas, 34 x 42 cm]

Hans Hansen - Urban Landscape [1890-1900]

Hans Hansen - Urban Landscape [1890-1900], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Watercolour and gouache, 80.8 x 60.2 cm]

Dorothea Sharp - In a Hillside Meadow

Dorothea Sharp - In a Hillside Meadow, a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Dorothea Sharp was born in Dartford in Kent in 1874 but it was not until the age of twenty-one that she began her artistic education in earnest. She soon moved to Paris where she was greatly influenced by the work of the Impressionists, which is evident in the spontaneous style and strong sense of colour and light that she is so well known for. Techniques, such as outlining figures with bright colours, were also adopted by Sharp after seeing the paintings of Matisse and van Gogh. In the mid 1940s she returned to London where she lived until her death in 1955.

[Oil on canvas, 73.7 x 61 cm]

Harold Harvey - Out to Sea

Harold Harvey - Out to Sea, a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Harold Harvey (Penzance, Cornwall, May 20, 1874 - May 19, 1941) was a British artist. He exhibited at the Newlyn Gallery and major provincial galleries, and had his first London show in 1913. Harvey’s last decade displayed all the remarkable abilities he had developed, and the wide range of his subject matter which included interiors, portraits, landscapes, religious themes, and the industrial landscape of Cornwall. In 1938 he featured in an article in Picture Post about the artistic colony at Newlyn. He continued painting up to his death.

[Oil on canvas, 76.2 x 63.5 cm]

Adolph Menzel - Theatre du Gymnase, Paris [1856]

Adolph Menzel - Theatre du Gymnase, Paris [1856] , a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Adolph Friedrich Erdmann von Menzel, (Breslau, December 8, 1815 – Berlin, February 9, 1905) was often compared to his French contemporaries, usually in the search for a German counterpart to the French Impressionists, even perhaps for a precursor. However one-sided this view may have been, his Théâtre du Gymnase cannot be dissociated from thoughts of theatre scenes by Daumier and, above all, Degas, although the latter did not even exist when Menzel painted this work. Menzel had visited Paris for the first time one year previously and ever after called it “Babel.” The notion of an excited but anonymous audience in the confusing artificial light leaves less opportunity for narrative detail than in Menzel’s later scenes of town life. But already in this work, there is no clear central focus of attention: from the actors playing a musical comedy in contemporary dress to the stalls and the boxes, everything seems to be peripheral. 

[Oil on canvas, 62 x 46 cm]

Nikolai Bogatov - Beekeeper [1875]

Nikolai Bogatov - Beekeeper [1875], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Nikolai Bogatov (1854 - 1935) was a Russian painter.

Elias Childe - Topsham with a View of Belvedere in the Distance [1824]

Elias Childe - Topsham with a View of Belvedere in the Distance [1824], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Elias Childe (1778 - 1849) was a prolific British painter of landscape and rustic genre in oil and watercolour.

[Oil on canvas, 76.2 x 50.8 cm]

Stanislas-Victor-Edmond Lepine - The Pont de la Tournelle, Paris [1862-64]

Stanislas-Victor-Edmond Lepine - The Pont de la Tournelle, Paris [1862-64], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

The Pont de la Tournelle is in the middle distance, and towards the right is the apse of the cathedral of Notre-Dame. The tower in front of the Pont de la Tournelle is the remains of the Pont de Constantine, before the Pont Sully was built in its place. Lépine painted this view many times and at different stages in his career.

[Oil on canvas, 13.7 x 24.4 cm]

Wilfred Gabriel de Glehn - Dance of the Nymphs, Corfu [1910]

Wilfred Gabriel de Glehn - Dance of the Nymphs, Corfu [1910], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Wilfred Gabriel de Glehn (Sydenham, London, 1870 - Stratford Tony, Wiltshire, May 11, 1951) was an impressionist British painter.

[Oil on canvas, 71 x 91 cm]

William Lionel Wyllie - Hoo Lodge, Rochester

William Lionel Wyllie - Hoo Lodge, Rochester, a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

William Lionel Wyllie (Camden, London, July 5, 1851 - Primrose Hill, London, April 6, 1931) was a prolific English painter of maritime themes in both oils and watercolour. Wyllie was a prolific exhibitor, with paintings and etchings shown at the Royal Academy, the Royal Institute of Oil Painters, the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours, the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers, the Grosvenor Gallery, the New English Art Club, the Society of British Artists, the Dowdeswell Galleries and the Fine Art Society.

[Oil on canvas, 45.7 x 81.3 cm]

Studio of Canaletto - Venice, Entrance to the Cannaregio [c.1734-42]

Studio of Canaletto - Venice, Entrance to the Cannaregio [c.1734-42], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

The view shows on the left St. Geremia with its campanile and the Palazzo Labia. At the centre can be seen the Ponte di Cannaregio and beyond it are the buildings of the Ghetto Vecchio. The Palazzo Querini detti Papozze is at the right edge of the picture. This painting is dated to the 1730s on the grounds of style and because of its relationship with a drawing by the artist which is apparently dated 1734 (Windsor, Royal Collection). It is considered to be a good product of Canaletto's studio.

[Oil on canvas, 47 x 76.4 cm]

Wilhelm von Gegerfelt - Venetian Embankment Scene

Wilhelm von Gegerfelt - Venetian Embankment Scene, a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Wilhelm von Gegerfelt (1844 – 1920) was a Swedish artist.

[Oil on canvas laid down on panel, 38 x 36 cm]

Torsten Wasastjerna - Woman in the Garden

Torsten Wasastjerna - Woman in the Garden, a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Torsten Wasastjerna (Helsinki, December 17, 1863 - July 1, 1927) was a Finnish painter. Wasastjerna is best known for his impressionist landscape paintings, but later he painted in the fantasy themes and symbolist paintings. He also wrote poetry and drama.

[Oil on canvas, 46.5 x 39 cm]

Edgar Degas - Woman Ironing [c.1876-87]

Edgar Degas - Woman Ironing [c.1876-87], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Women at work provided inspiration for Degas. In addition to ballet dancers and cabaret singers, he also painted milliners and dressmakers, laundresses and ironers - such as the young woman here. Laundresses also appeared as characters in newly popular realistic novels, which detailed the difficult lives of these women. They worked long, hot hours for low wages, and because they wore loose clothing and made deliveries to men's apartments, their morals were often questioned. Degas, however, seems not to have been interested in their social situation so much as in their characteristic gestures - in the line of his ironer's body as she leans into her work, in the soft curtain of colour provided by the garments that hang around her, in the crisp shirt folded on the table.

[Oil on canvas, 81.3 x 66 cm]

Cornelis Bega - A Peasant Woman Seduced by a Man in an Interior

A Peasant Woman Seduced by a Man in an Interior, a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Cornelis Bega (Haerlem, c.1621 – 1664) studied with genre painter Adriaen van Ostade, and his early works recall his teacher's dark, freely executed, many-figured subjects, though Bega often showed more psychological insight. From 1653 to 1654 he visited Germany, Switzerland, and France, then returned to Haarlem to join the Guild of Saint Luke. His life was probably cut short by the plague. 

Bega's principal subjects were taverns, domestic interiors, and villages, with characters ranging from nursing mothers and prostitutes to gamblers and alchemists. Between about 1660 and 1664, his genre scenes became more colorful, less populated, more emotionally expressive, and more focused on the fine details of object textures. Among those influenced by Bega was Jan Steen. Later European artists imitated Bega's style and borrowed characters from his dramas. Bega also drew, etched, and made counterproofs in a variety of materials.

Vasily Maximov - All in the Past [1889]

Vasily Maximov - All in the Past [1889], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Vasily Maximov (Lopono, January 29, 1844 - St. Petersburg, November 18, 1911) was a Russian genre painter.

[Oil on canvas, 72 x 93 cm]

Hendrik Goltzius - The Fall of Man [1616]

Hendrik Goltzius - The Fall of Man [1616], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

The painting depicts the moment when Adam and Eve disobey God and eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, which God forbade, when the serpent tempts them to do so. The traditionally depicted images of Adam and Eve after committing this original sin show the couple being troubled mentally with the sense of shame, guilt, and fear of punishment by God. But Goltzius draws them as a happy romantic couple, who might have eaten the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil decisively, not as a mistake committed by them.

In the painting, Eve takes the first bite of the apple and turns to Adam who looks into her eyes romantically, indicating the awakening of his desire for Eve. Goltzius has symbolically included some animals and other figures to communicate his own interpretation of the Fall of Man with the viewer. For instance, the serpent with a beautiful woman’s face symbolises the deceptiveness of what apparently appears to us. There is an elephant in the background representing piety and chastity in contrast to Adam’s weakness for the woman. The two goats indicate Eve’s lack of chastity. The cat looking straight at the viewer, like a judge, reminds the viewers the consequences of their sinful actions. The vine (a ground ivy) covering Adam’s nakedness shows his first awareness of nakedness.

[Oil on canvas, 104.5 x 138.4 cm]

Wilhelm Gallof - Coral Chain

Wilhelm Gallof - Coral Chain, a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Wilhelm Gallof (1878 - 1918) was a German painter, printmaker, and sculptor.

Ivan Kulokov - Winter Evening [1907]

Ivan Kulokov - Winter Evening [1907], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.