Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Leo Putz - Behind The Scenes [1905]
Leo Putz (Meran, South Tyrol, June 18, 1869 – Meran, 1940) was a German painter. His passionate and impressive works were a shining example for many other artists in the art circles around Art Nouveau and impressionism. Leo Putz is recognized as one of the artists who paved the way for expressionism. His works were on display in many exhibitions, including the international Panama-Pacific exhibition in San Francisco and in the Royal Glass Palace in Munich.
[Oil on canvas, 207 x 226 cm]
Monday, May 30, 2011
Michael Sweerts - The Painter's Studio [c.1650]
What first catches your eye in this dim painter's studio is a brightly lit pile of classical sculptures. The light falls upon a sculpture of a muscular discus thrower immediately behind it. These are plaster casts of antique sculptures. The youth in yellow on the left is busy drawing one of the sculptures. The boy to the left of the standing sculpture is drawing from a bust on the table in front of him. Drawing from examples was a fixed part of a painter's training in the seventeenth century.
[Oil on canvas, 71 x 74 cm]
Eugene Boudin - The Beach at Tourgeville-les-Sablons [1893]
Eugene Boudin - The Beach at Tourgeville-les-Sablons [1893], originally uploaded by Gandalf's Gallery.
This view is painted from Tourgéville-les-Sablons or Tourgéville-sur-Mer. The two jetties at the mouth of the river Touques (which form the entrance to the harbour of Trouville-Deauville) can be seen in the central middle-distance. Boudin painted the jetties from another angle in The Entrance to Trouville Harbour.
[Oil on canvas, 50.8 x 74.3 cm]
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Claude-Oscar Monet - The Water-Lily Pond [1899]
In 1883 Monet moved from the north-west of Paris to Giverny where he lived until his death. Adjacent to his property was a small pond which he acquired in 1893, where he created a water garden with an arched bridge in the Japanese style. In 1900 he exhibited a series of ten canvases of the pond, showing a single subject in differing light conditions. He worked on similar series representing poplars, haystacks and the façade of Rouen Cathedral during the same period.
The simple design of this painting with the close-up view of the bridge was repeated in several other canvases. The fresh greens of the foliage evoke an early summer's day.
[Oil on canvas, 88.3 x 93.1 cm]
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Anton Raphael Mengs - Perseus and Andromeda [1774-77]
The Hermitage possesses one of the best collections of works by Mengs in the world, painted at different periods in his career. Of these works the most famous is Perseus and Andromeda, its subject taken from Ovid's Metamorphoses, which was exhibited in the Palazzo Barberini in Rome in 1777, where it was much admired by those who saw it. Mengs sought his pure artistic forms in the Classical heritage: the work was essentially based on a Classical cameo which belonged to the artist's wife; the figure of Perseus was based on the statue of Apollo Belvedere, and that of Andromeda was borrowed from a Classical relief in the Villa Pamphili in Rome. The ordered nature of the unfussy composition, the ideally correct drawing, the skilful sculptural modelling of the figures and the majestic rhetorical gesture of the central figure all indicate that the work was composed according to the strict canons of Neoclassicism, of which Mengs was a devout follower.
[Oil on canvas, 227 x 153.5 cm]
Giorgio Vasari - Perseus and Andromeda [c.1572]
Giorgio Vasari (Arezzo, Tuscany, July 30, 1511 – Florence, June 27, 1574) was an Italian painter, writer, historian and architect, who is today famous for his biographies of Italian artists, considered the ideological foundation of art-historical writing.
Friday, May 27, 2011
Georges Seurat - Bathers at Asnieres [1884]
Asnières is an industrial suburb west of Paris on the River Seine. The present work shows a group of young workmen taking their leisure by the river. This was the first of Seurat's large-scale compositions. He drew conté crayon studies for individual figures using live models, and made small oil sketches on site which he used to help design the composition and record effects of light and atmosphere. Some 14 oil sketches and 10 drawings survive. The final composition, painted in the studio, combines information from both.
While the painting was not executed using Seurat's pointillist technique, which he had not yet invented, the artist later reworked areas of this picture using dots of contrasting colour to create a vibrant, luminous effect. For example, dots of orange and blue were added to the boy's hat. The simplicity of the forms and the use of regular shapes clearly defined by light recalls paintings by the Renaissance artist Piero della Francesca. In his use of figures seen in profile, Seurat may also have been influenced by ancient Egyptian art.
[Oil on canvas, 201 x 300 cm]
Frank Duveneck - Red Sail in the Harbour at Venice [1884]
Frank Duveneck - Red Sail in the Harbour at Venice [1884], originally uploaded by Gandalf's Gallery.
Frank Duveneck (October 9, 1848 – January 3, 1919) was an American figure and portrait painter. His work, at first ignored, when shown in Boston and elsewhere about 1875, attracted great attention, and many pupils flocked to him in Germany and Italy, where he made long visits. Henry James called him "the unsuspected genius" and at the age of 27 he was a celebrated artist.
In 1878 Duveneck opened a school in Munich, and in the village of Polling in Bavaria. His students, known as the "Duveneck Boys", included Twachtman, Otto Bacher, Julius Rolshoven, and Herman Wessel. In 1886 he married one of his students who was much admired by Henry James, Boston-born Elizabeth Boott. They lived in Bellosguardo for two years where she produced a son. She died later in Paris of pneumonia. Duveneck was devastated.
After returning from Italy to America, he gave some attention to sculpture, and modelled a fine monument to his wife, now in the English cemetery in Florence. Despite this activity, Elizabeth's death marked a slowing in his productivity, a wealthy man, he chose to lead a life of relative obscurity. He lived in Covington until his death in 1919 and taught at the Art Academy of Cincinnati.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Arvid Johansson - Winter in Paris [1894]
Arvid Johansson (1862 – 1923) was a Swedish painter.
[Oil on panel, 60 x 73 cm]
Pierre-Cecille Puvis de Chavannes - The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist [c.1869]
Pierre-Cecille Puvis de Chavannes - The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist [c.1869], originally uploaded by Gandalf's Gallery.
The episode is taken from the New Testament. Herod Antipas, Tetrarch of Galilee, entranced by Salome's dancing, offers her the object of her wishes. At the prompting of her mother, Herodias, she requests the head of John the Baptist on a plate. Salome's features are here thought to be based on those of the Princess Cantacuzène, who married Puvis de Chavannes in 1897. The figure of Herod standing on the right may be based on the novelist Anatole France.
The cross which Saint John the Baptist holds as the executioner prepares to strike is the focus of the composition. The static character of the design is mitigated by the figure of the executioner, recalling comparable figures in Delacroix and Chassériau. Probably unfinished, this painting remained with the painter until the time of his death. A related composition is now in the Barber Institute in Birmingham.
[Oil on canvas, 243.5 x 318.4 cm]
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Govert Flinck - Portrait of a Woman [1659]
Govert (or Govaert) Teuniszoon Flinck (Kleve, January 25, 1615 – Amsterdam, February 2, 1660) was a Dutch Golden Age painter. Flinck originally painted in the style of Rembrandt. Later he tended towards his teacher's rival, Van der Heist: more smooth and elegant. And Flinck was to profit from the move. He received commissions, for example, from the Amsterdam Town Hall. However, Flinck died before the work was completed.
[Oil on canvas, 69.5 x 61 cm]
Michiel van Miereveld - Portrait of a Woman [1618]
The female sitter in this portrait has not been identified. Michiel Jansz. van Miereveld (1567 - 1641) was born in Delft; he was taught by Anthonie van Blocklandt in Utrecht. He was active in Delft and joined the painters' guild there before 1613, although he was much employed at the Stadholder's court in The Hague. He died in Delft. He was a portrait painter.
[Oil on oak, 61.6 x 50.5 cm]
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
William Henry Holmes - Capri [1880]
Born near Cadiz, Ohio, William Henry Holmes was a survey-field artist, who earned a reputation as a skilled panoramic landscape painter of the Grand Canyon. He also did delicate watercolours in traditional style, and was a writer, archaeologist, teacher and illustrator. He lived in Washington DC, Chicago and Royal Oak, Michigan. Holmes was educated in the public schools of Georgetown, Ohio, and was a teacher until 1872. He died in Royal Oak in 1933.
[Watercolour and pencil on paper, 25.2 x 35.7 cm]
Pieter Codde - The Return of the Hunters [1633]
Gathered in a tall, spacious room is a festively-attired company. A few women are sitting at a table; two men have just entered. The one behind is greeted by one of the women; he proudly holds up a hare. His companion presents two partridges, also shot. This work by Pieter Codde is known as the Return of the Hunters. The men, however, are not dressed as hunters and so the word 'hunting' is clearly intended metaphorically and means the 'pursuit of love'. The erotic implications (of the large bed in the corner, for instance, and the hunters' catch) would immediately have been plain to a seventeenth-century viewer. At the time 'hunting the hare' and 'fowling' were metaphors for making love. The partridge furthermore was regarded as 'the most lascivious of all birds.'
Other details also contribute to the erotic symbolism of this painting. The candle on the edge of the bed and the somewhat grubby-looking dog usually stand for lust and lechery in erotically tinted work like this. On the floor there is a lute and the woman on the left is playing a theorbo, also a sort of lute. In seventeenth-century art the lute often refers to love. Sometimes these instruments referred to 'higher', married love; but in a dubious situation like this one, it is a symbol of lust and sexual love. The women here are only concerned with worldly matters and this too does not argue for a chaste and virtuous life.
[Oil on panel, 54 x 68 cm]
Monday, May 23, 2011
Caravaggio - The Supper at Emmaus [1601]
Two of Jesus' disciples were walking to Emmaus after the Crucifixion when the resurrected Jesus himself drew near and went with them, but they did not recognise him. At supper that evening in Emmaus '... he took bread, and blessed it, and brake and gave to them. And their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight.' Christ is shown at the moment of blessing the bread and revealing his true identity to the two disciples.
Caravaggio's innovative treatment of the subject makes this one of his most powerful works. The depiction of Christ is unusual in that he is beardless and great emphasis is given to the still life on the table. The intensity of the emotions of Christ's disciples is conveyed by their gestures and expression. The viewer too is made to feel a participant in the event. The picture was commissioned by the Roman nobleman Ciriaco Mattei in 1601. Caravaggio painted a second, more subdued version of The Supper at Emmaus about five years after this work.
[Oil and tempera on canvas, 141 x 196.2 cm]
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Jaques-Louis David - Portrait of a Young Woman in White [c.1798]
Jaques-Louis David - Portrait of a Young Woman in White [c.1798], originally uploaded by Gandalf's Gallery.
Jacques-Louis David was born in Paris in 1748, the son of an iron merchant who was killed in a duel (an unusual circumstance in his social class), when the boy was nine years old. His guardians wished to train him as an architect, but he insisted on being allowed to study painting. Following the advice of Boucher, he was placed in the studio of Joseph-Marie Vien (1716-1809), the leading promoter of the neoclassical reaction against the rococo. David's student work, strikingly rococo at first, was slow in adjusting to the ascendancy of classicism. A heart ailment brought on his death in December 1825.
[Oil on canvas, 125.5 x 95 cm]
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Magi Batet - Contemplant La Tempesta
Magi Batet is an artist born in Agramunt, a town in Lérida, Spain, 1943. He currently lives in Barcelona. He regards this painting as a deconstructive process, representing the sight of a furious storm from the apparent stillness of the interior.
[Oil on canvas, 65 x 54 cm]
You can see more of his work @ http://www.flickr.com/people/imagina_arte/
Paul Cézanne - Still Life with a Ginger Jar and Eggplants [1890-94]
Paul Cézanne - Still Life with a Ginger Jar and Eggplants [1890-94], originally uploaded by Gandalf's Gallery.
Friday, May 20, 2011
Isidor Kaufmann - The Chess Player
Isidor Kaufmann (March 22, 1853 - 1921) was an Austro-Hungarian painter of Jewish themes. Having devoted his career to genre painting, he traveled throughout Eastern Europe in search of scenes of Jewish, often Hasidic life.
Gabriel von Max - The Ecstatic Virgin Katharina Emmerich
Gabriel Cornelius Ritler von Max (August 23, 1840 – November 24, 1915) was a Prague-born Austrian painter. His first large canvas was painted in 1858 while he was a student at the Prague Academy. Gabriel von Max was a significant artist to emerge from the Piloty School, because he abandoned the themes of the Grunderzeitliche (genre and history), in order to develop an allegorical-mystical pictorial language, which became typical of Secessionist Art.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Benjamin West - Cymon and Iphigenia [1773]
Cymon was the handsome son of a nobleman of Cypress who was so crude and stupid that he was sent to work on the land. One morning he happened on the camp where Iphigenia was sleeping among her slaves. Transfixed by her beauty, he remained leaning on his staff. When she awoke and spoke, he continued to stare at her. His love for Iphigenia fired Cymon with such desire for learning that he quickly advanced to become an exemplary young man and after some military adventures, won her. All the elements in this painting correspond to the story, with the exception that Iphigenia is here clothed, whereas in most representations she is sleeping nearly nude, with her breasts uncovered. A reference to this detail is made by the partial dress of the sleeping slave on the right.
[Oil on canvas, 127 x 160.3 cm]
Winslow Homer - Croquet Scene [1866]
Croquet, a fad in the United States by the mid-1860s, was appreciated as a healthful outdoor activity that invited men and women to compete on equal terms as well as to visit and flirt with one another. Here, a man observes the expected courtesies by assisting his female companions in the game. He is sandwiched between two of them, who wear stylish dresses brightly coloured in a patriotic palette and tower over him. Homer's apparently pleasant afternoon of play also implies the uncertain terrain of relationships between American men and women. At this time, women were evaluating the choice between their traditional roles as wives and mothers and their new opportunities for education and employment that emerged following the loss of so many men in the Civil War, growing urbanisation and industrialisation, and the burgeoning women's movement.
[Oil on canvas, 40.3 x 66.2 cm]
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Henri Edmond Cross - Before The Storm, The Bather [c.1907-08]
Henri Edmond Cross - Before The Storm, The Bather [c.1907-08], originally uploaded by Gandalf's Gallery.
Henri Edmond Cross Douai, May 20, 1856 – Saint-Clair, May 16, 1910) was a French pointillist painter. His early works, portraits and still lifes, were in the dark colours of realism, but after meeting with Claude Monet in 1883, he painted in the brighter colours of Impressionism. He began his Pointillist period after spending time with Paul Signac in 1904. His later works are Fauvist, perhaps influenced by his acquaintance with Henri Matisse.
[Oil on canvas, 65.5 x 81 cm]
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Jean Béraud - Le Pont Neuf
Jean Béraud (Saint Petersburg, January 12, 1849 – Paris, October 4, 1935) was a French Impressionist painter and commercial artist. Béraud never married and had no children. He died in Paris on October 4, 1935, and is buried in Montparnasse Cemetery beside his mother.
[Oil on canvas, 39.3 x 47.9 cm]
Monday, May 16, 2011
Edouard Manet - Music in the Tuileries Gardens [1862]
This painting of the Tuileries Gardens in Paris was Manet's first major work depicting modern city life. The band is playing and a fashionable crowd has gathered to listen. The picture includes portraits of Manet's friends and family. These include Manet himself as well as: Baudelaire, poet (1821–1867), Théophile Gautier, poet and novelist (1811–1872), Ignace Fantin-Latour, flower-painter (1836–1904), Jacques Offenbach, composer (1819-1880), and Eugène Manet, the artist's brother (1833–1892).
[Oil on canvas, 76.2 x 118.1 cm]
Sunday, May 15, 2011
John Michael Wright - The Family of Sir Robert Vyner [1673]
John Michael Wright - The Family of Sir Robert Vyner [1673], originally uploaded by Gandalf's Gallery.
The sitters are Sir Robert (1631-1688) and his wife Mary (née Whitchurch; died 1674), the wealthy widow of Sir Thomas Hyde, whom he married in 1665; Bridget Hyde (1662-1734), Lady Vyner's daughter by her first marriage; and Charles Vyner (1666-88), their only son. Sir Robert, a wealthy goldsmith and banker, made the regalia for the coronation of Charles II, 1661. He lent extensively to the government and by the time this portrait was painted was already in financial difficulties because these loans had not been repaid. He was Lord Mayor of London in 1674, but was declared bankrupt in 1684. He died broken-hearted at the death of his only son.
John Michael Wright (May 1617 – July 1694) was a British portrait painter in the Baroque style. Wright trained in Edinburgh under the Scots painter George Jameson, and acquired a considerable reputation as an artist and scholar during a long sojourn in Rome. There he was admitted to the Accademia di San Luca, and was associated with some of the leading artists of his generation. Wright is currently rated as one of the leading indigenous British painters of his generation and largely for the distinctive realism in his portraiture. Perhaps due to the unusually cosmopolitan nature of his experience, he was favoured by patrons at the highest level of society in an age in which foreign artists were usually preferred. Wright's paintings of royalty and aristocracy are included amongst the collections of many leading galleries today.
[Oil on canvas, 1448 mm x 1956 mm]
Valentin de Boulogne - The Four Ages of Man [c.1629]
This is probably the 'Quatre ages de l'homme' by Valentin mentioned in the inventory of Michel Particelli, Seigneur d'Hémery, Paris, 1650. The picture was certainly in the celebrated collection of the Dukes of Orléans during most of the 18th century. Infancy (centre foreground) holds an empty bird trap, perhaps symbolising hope; Youth (left) plays a lute, probably symbolising amorous desire; Manhood (right), in armour, wears a victor's laurel wreath and holds a plan of fortifications; Age (centre background) is associated with a pile of coins, symbol of avarice. The glass he holds may be symbolic of the fragility of life.
Le Valentin (1591 – 1632) is reasonably identified as the son of a Valentin de Boulongne of Coulommiers-en-Brie. He was in Rome by 1620; he was influenced by Manfredi and Caravagggio. Most of the attributions to him are traditional, but stylistically coherent and convincing. His 'Martyrdom of Saints Processus and Martinian' (Vatican, Rome) is documented as of 1629-30. He died in Rome in 1632.
[Oil on canvas, 96.5 x 134 cm]
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Pieter de Hooch - A Woman Drinking with Two Men [c.1658]
This picture was probably painted in 1658, towards the end of de Hooch's stay in Delft. Many changes in the composition show the care with which the design was developed. The figures appear to have been added after the architectural features of the interior had been painted. Its chequered floor is visible through the skirt of the servant to the right, and technical photographs show that this figure was originally in conversation with a man standing on her left, a figure later concealed by the painter.
The main focus of the painting is the wine glass, held up by the girl on the left, which is brightly illuminated from the adjacent window. On the rear wall behind the table is a map of Holland and over the fireplace to the right, a painting showing the Education of the Virgin, which is similar to a picture (Ering, Esterhazy Chapel) which appears to have been painted in Flanders in the early 17th century.
[Oil on canvas, 73.7 x 64.6 cm]
Johannes Vermeer - A Young Woman Seated at a Virginal [c.1670-72]
Johannes Vermeer - A Young Woman Seated at a Virginal [c.1670-72], originally uploaded by Gandalf's Gallery.
In the left foreground rests a viola da gamba with the bow placed in between the strings. The virginal has a landscape painted on the inside of the lid, and the painting in the background is The Procuress by Dirck van Baburen (Boston, Museum of Fine Arts) or a copy of it. Whether or not the subject of The Procuress is intended to have a bearing on the meaning of the whole work is not clear. It is probable that a more general association between music and love is intended. A tapestry frames the scene at the upper left, and the skirting in the lower right is decorated with Delft tiles.
[Oil on canvas, 51.5 x 45.5 cm]
Attilio Salemme - Enigma of Joy [1947]
An artist who died from a heart attack at age forty-three, Attilio Salemme's (Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, 1911 – New York City, 1955) paintings juxtapose elongated vertical rectangles in complex relationships that suggest groups of "presences," near human beings lonely in their inability to break through the artist's geometric overlay to attain human status. Salemme’s paintings, while not those of a major artist, were acknowledged for their surreal and metaphysical uniqueness. They may be found in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art and Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City.
[Oil on canvas, 131.8 x 202.2 cm]
John Everett Millais - Christ in the House of His Parents (The Carpenter's Shop) [1849-50]
John Everett Millais - Christ in the House of His Parents (The Carpenter's Shop) [1849-50], originally uploaded by Gandalf's Gallery.
Millais (1829 – 1896) based the setting on a real carpenter’s shop in Oxford Street, London. Symbols of the Crucifixion figure prominently: the wood, the nails, the cut in Christ’s hand and the blood on his foot. Millais was viciously attacked by the press for showing the holy family as ordinary. Charles Dickens described Christ as ‘a hideous, wry-necked, blubbering, red-haired boy in a night-gown.’
[Oil on canvas, 864 x 1397 mm]
Thursday, May 12, 2011
Grigory Gluckmann - The Break
Grigory Gluckmann (1898 – 1959) was a Russian painter and illustrator. He eventually escaped to Germany, where he continued his art studies, and then went on to Florence, where he spent a year studying and familiarizing himself with the masters of the Renaissance, this latter period becoming one of the major influences in the development of his own mature style. After his Italian sojourn, he settled in Paris in 1924 to work and to launch his professional career as an artist. His success there began with his first one-man exhibition in 1924 at the famous Galerie Druet on the Rue Royale when critics hailed him as an artist of extraordinary ability and talent.
[Oil on panel, 45.3 x 32.4 cm]
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Frederick Childe Hassam - The White Dory, Gloucester [1895]
Frederick Childe Hassam - The White Dory, Gloucester [1895], originally uploaded by Gandalf's Gallery.
This painting was sold by Sotheby's on December 3, 2009 for US $3,666,500.
[Oil on canvas, 66 x 53.3 cm]
Frederick Childe Hassam - Rainy Day, New York [1892]
This painting was sold by Sotheby's on December 2, 2010 for US $1,538,500.
[Oil on canvas, 45.5 x 31.8 cm]
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Berthe Morisot - Summer's Day [c.1879]
This is probably the painting that Morisot exhibited under the title 'The Lake in the Bois de Boulogne' in the fifth Impressionist exhibition, held in 1880. Intentionally sketchy in execution, it depicts two fashionable young women in a boat floating placidly on a lake. The sense of a visual impression that has been quickly captured on canvas is reinforced by the tiny detail of a horse-drawn carriage moving swiftly along the far shore. The women, probably professional models, also appear in other works by Morisot.
[Oil on canvas, 45.7 x 75.2 cm]
[Oil on canvas, 45.7 x 75.2 cm]
Leopold Franz Kowalski - Autumn on the Shore of the Lake
Leopold Franz Kowalski (1856 – 1931) was a French painter.
Monday, May 9, 2011
Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun - Self Portrait in a Straw Hat [c.1782]
Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun - Self Portrait in a Straw Hat [c.1782], originally uploaded by Gandalf's Gallery.
Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun, the daughter of a minor painter, Louis Vigée, was born and brought up in Paris. She became a member of the Académie de St-Luc in 1774 and of the French Academy in 1783. She was a highly fashionable portrait painter, patronised particularly by Queen Marie Antoinette. Between 1789 and 1805 she travelled in Europe and visited Russia.
The painting appears, after cleaning, to be an autograph replica of a picture, the original of which was painted in Brussels in 1782 in free imitation of Rubens's Chapeau de Paille, which Vigée Le Brun had seen in Antwerp. It was exhibited in Paris in 1782 at the Salon de la Correspondance. Vigée Le Brun's original is recorded in a private collection in France.
[Oil on canvas, 97.8 x 70.5 cm]
Rembrandt - Self Portrait at the Age of Sixty-Three [1669]
Rembrandt - Self Portrait at the Age of Sixty-Three [1669], originally uploaded by Gandalf's Gallery.
This work was painted in the final year of Rembrandt's life and is one of his last pictures. He died on October 4, 1669 and was buried in the Westerkerk in Amsterdam. Rembrandt painted more self portraits than any other artist of the 17th century. In this late picture, the artist wears a deep red coat and a beret, his hands clasped before him. The viewer is confronted by his steady gaze. Rembrandt painted and eyched self portraits throughout his life, but those executed in his final years, in which he presents himself in a reflective mood, are among the most poignant and challenging.
The painting was cleaned in 1967, revealing the damaged signature and date. The X-ray of the picture reveals two pentimenti (alterations to the design). First, a change in the size and colour of the beret, which was originally much larger and all white. Secondly, the original position of the hands was open and he was holding a paintbrush. Repainting the hands clasped and without the brush reduces their dramatic impact and draws attention back to the face.
[Oil on canvas, 86 x 70.5 cm]
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Bernardo Bellotto - View of Pirna from the Sonnenstein Castle [c.1750]
Bernardo Bellotto - View of Pirna from the Sonnenstein Castle [c.1750], originally uploaded by Gandalf's Gallery.
Camille Pissarro - View from Louveciennes [1869-70]
This landscape was probably painted in the spring of 1870. The previous year Pissarro had moved from Pontoise to Louveciennes, west of Paris, where his friends Renoir and Monet were then active. The painting shows the village of Voisins in the centre and the road leading towards the remains of the Marly aqueduct on the left horizon.
[Oil on canvas, 52.7 x 81.9 cm]
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Frank Myers Boggs - Pont Neuf [1896]
Frank Myers Boggs (Springfield, Ohio, December 6, 1855 – Meudon, Hauts-de-Seine, August 8, 1926) was an American Painter, watercolourist and engraver. Boggs loved France which is witnessed through his atmospheric paintings of its streets, ports, and monuments. Boggs also painted Holland, Venice and Belgium. He painted the Ports in Normandy and La Rochelle. He found inspiration from quaint villages and markets.
[Oil on canvas, 54.6 x 65.6 cm]
Friday, May 6, 2011
Frederic Bazille - Young Woman Lowering Her Head [1868]
This painting was sold by Sotheby's on June 20, 2007 for GB £216,000.
[Oil on canvas, 46.2 x 38.2 cm]
Ignacio Zuloaga y Zabaleta - Lady With Fan
Ignacio Zuloaga y Zabaleta (Eibar, July 26, 1870 – Madrid, October 31, 1945) was a Basque Spanish painter, born near the monastery of Loyola. He was the son of metalworker and damascener Plácido Zuloaga and grandson of the organizer and director of the royal armoury in Madrid.
Inspired by a visit to the Andalusia region of Spain in 1892, Zuloaga began to focus on subject matter from Spanish culture and folklore, such as bullfighters, peasants, and dancers. He used earthen colours almost exclusively and often placed his figures against dramatic landscapes. Zuloaga began to achieve international success with the painting Daniel Zuloaga and His Daughters, which was exhibited in 1899 and purchased by the French government for the Luxembourg Museum in Paris. About 1907 he became a popular society portraitist, an aspect of his career that brought him considerable wealth.
[Oil on canvas, 85.7 x 71.8 cm]
Thursday, May 5, 2011
François Gall - Eugenie with Umbrella, Between Second-Hand Booksellers and the Morris Column, Paris
François Gall - Eugenie with Umbrella, Between Second-Hand Booksellers and the Morris Column, Paris, originally uploaded by Gandalf's Gallery.
Francois Gall, Hungarian by birth, became an impressionist painter in the pure French tradition after he moved to Paris in 1936. He was born in Kolozsvar in the former region of Transylvania on March 22, 1912. He began studies at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Rome while working in menial jobs to secure a living. Support came in 1939 when the Hungarian government awarded Gall with a scholarship.
Francois Gall greatly admired the first generation impressionist and adopted their concepts for his own interpretations. Parisian scenes and portrayals of women engaged in typically feminine activities were among his preferred subjects. Francois Gall is a modern impressionist, bringing to this most enduring style, his own unique personality. He died in 1987.
[Oil on canvas, 27 x 22 cm]
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