Claude-Oscar Monet - The Petit Bras of the Seine at Argenteuil [1872]

Claude-Oscar Monet - The Petit Bras of the Seine at Argenteuil [1872], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Monet settled in Argenteuil, about nine kilometres from Paris, in 1871. This view of a quiet tributary of the Seine near his home contrasts with some of Monet's boldly experimental works of this period. This painting is fairly conventional in technique and composition, and recalls the river scenes of Charles-Francois Daubigny.

[Oil on canvas, 52.6 x 71.8 cm]

Paul-Narcisse Salières - Faïence Restorer [1848]

Paul-Narcisse Salières - Faïence Restorer [1848], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

This painting was displayed at the Paris Salon of 1848. Salières, (French, Carcassonne, 1818 - Marseilles, 1908) a student of the academic painter Paul Delaroche, made his debut at the Salon the prior year. Ostensibly an unassuming genre scene taken from everyday life, the broken vessel held by the girl may also be read as a symbol of lost innocence.

[Oil on canvas, 59 x 59 cm]

Vincent van Gogh - Vase with Gladioli and China Asters [1886]

Vincent van Gogh - Vase with Gladioli and China Asters [1886], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

In Paris in 1886, Vincent van Gogh produced a great many still lifes of flowers, including this one of gladioli and asters. Until shortly before this time, he had painted mainly in darker shades, but this new subject gave him the chance to experiment freely with bright colours and looser brushstrokes. Van Gogh has applied the paint remarkably thickly in this work. In October 1886, van Gogh wrote to a colleague explaining why he had painted so many floral still lifes that year. 'I have lacked money for paying models, else I had entirely given myself to figure painting but I have made a series of colour studies in painting simply flowers.' 

[Oil on canvas, 46.5 x 38.5 cm]

Gustave Courbet - Woman in the Waves [1868]

Gustave Courbet - Woman in the Waves [1868], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Between 1864 and 1868, Courbet produced a series of paintings of female nudes, including this one. In Woman in the Waves, Courbet simultaneously evokes the myth of Venus born of the sea, but slyly subverts the figure's pose, which derived from academic convention, by depicting the model's underarm hair - an element of realism underscored by the almost palpable quality of her flesh.

[Oil on canvas, 65.4 x 54 cm]

Jean Béraud - Paris Kiosk [1880-84]

Jean Béraud - Paris Kiosk [1880-84], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Born to French parents in St. Petersburg, Russia, Béraud (French, 1849 - 1935) was taken to Paris in 1853. He abandoned a career in law to become a painter and eventually became known for his highly detailed scenes of urban life. Working from a carriage that he converted into a mobile studio, Béraud recorded life on the grand boulevards that had recently been carved through the city by Baron Haussman. In this scene, the level of detail is so exact that we can make out an advertisement on the Morris column for a comic opera called "La Fatinitza," which opened in 1879 at the Théâtre de Nouveauté.

[Oil on canvas, 35.5 x 26.5 cm]

Joseph Mallord William Turner - Venice, from the Porch of Madonna della Salute [c.1835]

Joseph Mallord William Turner - Venice, from the Porch of Madonna della Salute [c.1835], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

This painting, which is based in part on a sketch executed in August 1819 during Turner's first trip to Venice, combines two viewpoints along the Grand Canal. The buildings on the left are seen from the corner of the church of Santa Maria della Salute. Those on the right are seen from a vague position across the canal, approximately one hundred yards farther back, near the Campo del Traghetto of Santa Maria del Giglio. Turner also extended the height of the Campanile (the tower in the background at left) and added a building in the background at the right.

[Oil on canvas, 91.4 x 122.2 cm]

Canaletto - Piazza San Marco in Venice [c.1723-24]

Canaletto - Piazza San Marco in Venice [c.1723-24], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Canaletto was the leading painter of city views, or vedute, in eighteenth-century Venice. This early work, which nonetheless displays the most outstanding features of his style, depicts the most famous square in Venice from a high viewpoint, thus ensuring a broader frame for the composition. The horizontal line formed in the background by the façades of St Mark's and the Doge's Palace contrasts sharply with the vertical thrust of the Campanile, while the Procuratie lining both sides of the square give depth to the perspective. Another distinguishing feature of Canaletto's work was the painstaking rendering of all the elements that appear in his works, designed to create atmosphere in his view paintings.

[Oil on canvas, 141.5 x 204.5 cm]

Jan Molenaer - A Young Man and Woman Making Music [c.1630-32]

Jan Molenaer - A Young Man and Woman Making Music [c.1630-32], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

The duet played by the couple may well refer to the harmony of true love, while the foot-warmer is usually interpreted as a symbol for the effort a man has to make in order to gain a woman's love. The portrait in the right background is in the style of Michiel van Miereveld (1567-1641), and is probably of Prince Frederik Henrik of Orange (1584-1647), who became Stadholder of the Dutch Republic in 1625.

[Oil on canvas, 68 x 84 cm]

Allen Smith Jr - The Young Mechanic [1848]

Allen Smith Jr - The Young Mechanic [1848], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Early in his career Smith (American, 1810 – 1890) exhibited landscape, still-life, and genre paintings in addition to portraits, but he met with such success as a portraitist after moving to the Midwest that he seldom painted any other subject. He appears to have received almost all of the most important portrait commissions in the Midwestern cities where he worked. Nevertheless, he exhibited genre paintings at the National Academy of Design in 1842 and with the American Art-Union in 1846 and 1848-49. The Young Mechanic, his Art-Union painting for 1848, is the first of these efforts to come to light. Its warm tonality, strong lighting, and detailed realism accord with the artist’s portrait style during the period. The thoroughgoing realism is epitomised in the trompe l’oeil feature of the gate that extends forward toward the picture plane and which bears Smith’s signature. The title, The Young Mechanic (the word mechanic meaning a skilled person who works with his hands), refers to the boy seated behind the counter of what may be his father’s woodworking shop. The working-class boy has been hired by the better-dressed boy in the straw hat to whittle a new mast for his toy boat. 

[Oil on canvas, 102.2 x 81.7 cm]

William Sidney Mount - The Painter's Triumph [1838]

William Sidney Mount - The Painter's Triumph [1838], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

In an austere plank-floored rural studio, a proud and exultant artist unveils his creation to the delight of a local spectator, possibly his patron or just a farmer friend, who has come to see the work that will soon be sent to exhibition. The canvas undoubtedly records the world of their experience. The studio contains only a plain chair and a few canvases turned to the unembellished walls. The Apollo Belvedere, an emblem of academic art, is depicted in the drawing on the wall, appearing to turn away in disgust. The power of painters to capture familiar realities occupied a middle ground between 1830 and 1860, challenged both by the world of popular culture, which proffered cruder, more sensational entertainment, and by traditionalists who wanted art to elevate and refine viewers by focusing on ideal beauty alone.

[Oil on wood, 49.5 x 59.7 cm]

Gustave Courbet - Young Ladies of the Village [1851-52]

Gustave Courbet - Young Ladies of the Village [1851-52], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

This painting, which initiated a series of pictures devoted to the lives of women, shows Courbet's three sisters out for a walk in the Communal, a small valley near his native village of Ornans. Painted during the winter of 1851–52, Young Ladies of the Village was preceded by several studies including an oil sketch in which Courbet established the leading features of this picture. In this, the final work, he gave the figures a more prominent role and altered the landscape, omitting the two large trees that in the study are silhouetted against the sky. He also repainted and enlarged the cattle.

When the work was exhibited in the Salon of 1852, critics bitterly attacked it, finding it tasteless and clumsy and berating the common features and countrified costumes of the three girls, the ridiculous little dog and cattle, and the painting's overall lack of unity, including traditional perspective and scale. Ironically, the very effects that Courbet worked hardest to achieve were the ones that proved most troublesome.

[Oil on canvas, 194.9 x 261 cm]

Vincent van Gogh - Orchards in Blossom [1889]

Vincent van Gogh - Orchards in Blossom [1889], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Oil on canvas, 50 x 65 cm]

Pieter Saenredam - West Facade of the Church of Saint Mary in Utrecht [1662]

Pieter Saenredam - West Facade of the Church of Saint Mary in Utrecht [1662], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

This superb panel is illustrative of the innovative approach adopted by the Dutch artist Pieter Saenredam (1597 - 1642), who was the first architecture painter to represent existing buildings using a peculiar new working method. First, he would take measurements and make sketches of buildings on site; these would then be used to produce detailed construction drawings in the studio. Finally, after several years, he would complete the oil paintings, transferring his delicate drawings to the appropriate support. In this way Saenredam sought to create impeccable portraits of buildings, though his quest for perfection occasionally led him to modify reality. The solid, monumental quality of his work is conveyed through simple, bright architectural settings and the use of a palette of pale colours for lighting purposes.

[Oil on panel, 65.1 x 51.2 cm]

El Greco - The Vision of Saint John [1608-14]

El Greco - The Vision of Saint John [1608-14], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

The painting, unfinished at El Greco's death and listed in a postmortem inventory, depicts a passage in Revelation describing the opening of the Fifth Seal and the distribution of white robes to "those who had been slain for the work of God and for the witness they had borne." It is cut down from a large altarpiece commissioned in 1608 for the church of the hospital of Saint John the Baptist in Toledo. The missing upper part may have shown the Sacrificial Lamb opening the Fifth Seal.

The broad open brushwork is characteristic of El Greco's late style. The picture is much damaged. Much admired by twentieth-century artists, the picture was studied in Paris by Picasso when he was working on ‘Les Demoiselles d'Avignon’ and it was sketched by Jackson Pollock.

[Oil on canvas, top truncated, 222.3 x 193 cm, with added strips 224.8 x 199.4 cm]

Edmond Joseph Béliard - Banks of the Oise

Edmond Joseph Béliard - Banks of the Oise, a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Edouard Joseph Béliard (1832 – 1912) was a French painter. This painting was sold by Sotheby's on December 13, 2007 for Euro 6,250.

[Oil on canvas, 32.5 x 44.5 cm]

Jose de Ribera - Jacob's Dream [1639]

Jose de Ribera - Jacob's Dream [1639], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Jose de Ribera (baptised Játiva, Spain, February 17, 1591 – Naples, September 2, 1652) was a Spanish painter and etcher who worked in Naples. He was born in Spain but spent most of his life in Italy. Little is known of his life in Spain, though he is said by the painter and biographer Antonio Palomino to have received his first training there under Francisco Ribalta. It is not known when he went to Italy, but there is evidence that as a young man he worked in Parma and Rome. In 1616 he married in Naples, then under Spanish rule, where he remained the rest of his life. In 1626 he signed as a member of the Roman Academy of St. Luke and in 1631 as a knight of the Papal Order of Christ, although he always retained his Spanish identity.

The whole of Ribera’s surviving work appears to belong to the period after he settled in Naples. His large production comprises mainly religious compositions, along with a number of classical and genre subjects and a few portraits. He did much work for the Spanish viceroys, by whom many of his paintings were sent to Spain. He was also employed by the Roman Catholic church and had numerous private patrons of various nationalities. His paintings were widely imitated and copied in Spain. From 1621 onward there are numerous signed, dated, and documented works from Ribera’s hand.

[Oil on canvas, 179 x 233 cm]

Joachim Beuckelaer - The Four Elements: Water [1569]

Joachim Beuckelaer - The Four Elements: Water [1569], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Twelve different varieties of fish have been identified among those offered for sale in this painting. The direct gaze of the stall holders is particularly striking, as is Beuckelaer's use of steep perspective framing the street vista to the left. Framed by the central arch is the scene of Christ appearing to the disciples for the third time after his Resurrection to perform the miracle by which fish appear in hitherto empty nets.

[Oil on canvas, 158.5 x 215 cm]

Joachim Beuckelaer - The Four Elements: Fire [1570]

Joachim Beuckelaer - The Four Elements: Fire [1570], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Fire is one of Beuckelaer's most ambitious works, combining the still life of haunches of meat and poultry being prepared for cooking on the fire beyond with a dramatic use of perspective constructions involving multiple vanishing points. Beyond the kitchen Christ is shown seated with Martha and Mary.

From an Antwerp family of painters, Beuckelaer trained in the studio of Pieter Aertsen. In 1560 he became an independent master, and continued to develop themes in painting pioneered by Aertsen, arguably surpassing him in skill. Both Beuckelaer and Aertsen are particularly known for their market and kitchen scenes, which display provisions and domestic activity with illusionistic details but on an often heroic scale. These scenes frequently form a foil to a biblical subject in the background, and suggest a deliberate contrast between the physical and the spiritual.

[Oil on canvas, 157.5 x 215.5 cm]

Joachim Beuckelaer - The Four Elements: Earth [1569]

Joachim Beuckelaer - The Four Elements: Earth [1569], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

In this painting the produce is depicted with tremendous bravura: vegetables tumble from the basket held by the woman on the left, and cascade towards the viewer. Sixteen different varieties of vegetable and fruit have been identified. The tiny figures of the Holy Family can be seen crossing a bridge in the far distance on the left.

[Oil on canvas, 157.3 x 214.2 cm]

Joachim Beuckelaer - The Four Elements: Air [1569]

Joachim Beuckelaer - The Four Elements: Air [1569], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

This is one of a set of four pictures which take as their theme the four elements of Earth, Water, Air and Fire. In the art of the Low Countries in the later 16th and 17th centuries it became common to symbolise the elements by references to the natural world. Here, seductive representations of market produce for sale or for cooking are combined with relevant Biblical episodes. Beuckelaer's series of paintings are among the earliest and most accomplished fusions of these themes. These four pictures were produced in Antwerp, probably for a patron in Italy. 

In this painting, Air, different kinds of fowl are offered for sale, some still alive in large wicker baskets, others dead and ready for plucking. On the platter in the centre of the foreground are rabbits, and to either side eggs in a basket and stacks of cheeses. In the middle of the composition, at a distance, the prodigal son is shown leaning against a woman in a debauched manner.

[Oil on canvas, 157.7 x 215.5 cm]

Jan Vermeer - Glass of Wine [c.1661]

Jan Vermeer - Glass of Wine [c.1661], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

An elegantly dressed young man is watching a woman finish a glass of wine. He has his hand on a jug, and seems to be waiting to refill the glass. Vermeer has taken the traditional motif of `wine, women and song', and, obviously influenced by a picture of ter Borch's, transformed it into a distinguished tête-à-tête. Vermeer does not give any explicit indication of the nature of this couple's relationship; it is uncertain whether consuming alcohol will lead to excess - Vermeer simply provides hints. The chitarrone on the chair, an instrument that frequently occurs in his pictures, symbolises both harmony and frivolity. The window pane with the coat of arms also shows a woman holding a bridle, an attribute of Temperantia (moderation).

Vermeer handles the light coming in through the leaded window and its interplay with people and objects in a masterly fashion. In his later paintings in particular Vermeer used the "camera obscura", which opened up completely new opportunities for expression and design for artists, in order to capture the effect of light and colours more effectively.

[Oil on canvas, 67.7 x 79.6 cm]

Cecilia Beaux - Les Derniers Jours d'Enfance [1885]

Cecilia Beaux - Les Derniers Jours d'Enfance [1885], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

When Cecilia Beaux (American, 1855 – 1942) arrived in Paris, the Impressionists were beginning to lose their solidarity. In the summer of 1888, with classes in summer recess, Beaux worked in the fishing village of Concarneau with the American painters Alexander Harrison and Charles Lasar. She tried applying the plein-air painting techniques used by the Impressionists to her own landscapes and portraiture, with little success. Unlike her predecessor Mary Cassatt, who had arrived near the beginning of the Impressionist movement fifteen years earlier and who had absorbed it, Beaux's artistic temperament, precise and true to observation, would not align with Impressionism and she remained a realist painter for the rest of her career. Beaux mostly admired classic artists like Titian and Rembrandt. Her European training did influence her palette, however, and she adopted a greater use of white and paler coloration in her oil painting, particularly in depicting female subjects, an approach favoured by Sargent as well.

[Oil on canvas, 116.8 x 137.2 cm]

Hans Herrmann - Flower Market

Hans Herrmann - Flower Market, a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Hans Herrmann (1858 - 1942) was a pupil of Daege (1805-1883) at the academy of arts in Berlin. From there he went on his first study trip to Holland, at first to Dordrecht. From that time he went back to Holland every year. In 1883 he opened his own studio, from 1886 he lived in Berlin. Later on he went on journeys to France and Italy, but Holland remained to be his favourite landscape, with its misty atmosphere and the picturesque and vivid ports.

[Oil on canvas, 60 x 80 cm framed]

Emanuel de Witte - Adriana van Heusden and Daughter at the Fishmarket [c.1662]

Emanuel de Witte - Adriana van Heusden and Daughter at the Fishmarket [c.1662], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

De Witte was born at Alkmaar, and in 1636 became a member of the guild of painters there. After a brief period in Rotterdam, he moved to Delft in the 1640s. His earliest works are figure paintings in the style of artists from Utrecht. From 1652 he was chiefly active at Amsterdam. His last dated work is of 1688.

This scene was probably painted when de Witte was living in the home of Joris de Wijs and his wife Adriana van Heusden. The picture was the subject of litigation between de Witte and Adriana van Heusden in 1669-71. Although De Witte is mainly known as a painter of interiors, this work illustrates his considerable abilities as a genre painter. It must have been painted after the New Fishmarket in Amsterdam was opened in early 1661, probably about 1662.

[Oil on canvas, 57.1 x 64.1 cm]

Samuel Morse - Gallery of the Louvre [1831-33]

Samuel Morse - Gallery of the Louvre [1831-33], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

This picture directly confronts the problems Morse (American, 1791 – 1872) perceived in the New York art scene: a flood of fake European masterpieces on the market and insufficient training for artists. As an antidote, he created an Americanised Kunstkammer featuring himself and others, including his friend the author James Fenimore Cooper, studying, making, and discussing art in a gallery. In effect, Morse brought home the collection of European paintings he thought most vital to the success of American art at large. He began with the Salon Carré at the Louvre, and the Grande Galerie beyond, and stripped it of its installation of modern French paintings and re-hung it as a gallery of Italian Old Masters. He placed himself in profile at centre, training an American student to see the world of art from his perspective.

[Oil on canvas, 187.3 x 274.3 cm]

Amadee-Julien Marcel-Clement - A Summer's Night on the Promenade des Anglais [1923]

Amadee-Julien Marcel-Clement - A Summer's Night on the Promenade des Anglais [1923], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Born in Paris in 1873, Marcel-Clement studied at the School of Fine Art and made his début at the Paris Salon in 1903. At this time he was best known for his Parisian street scenes, which captured so vividly the era of the Belle Époque and the fashionable Parisian Society. He was a master at portraying the urban landscape, and his usage of light and reflections in wet streets is reminiscent of the work of Luigi Loir, Cortes, Laloue and Atkinson Grimshaw.

Aleksander Ivanov - The Apparition of Christ to the People [1837-57]

The Apparition of Christ to the People [1837-57], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

In the center of the picture stands John the Baptist, baptizing people in Jordan and pointing at Jesus walking downhill. To the right of John, the group of apostles is shown in a receding manner: John the Beloved Apostle, then Saint Peter, Saint Andrey, and doubting Nathanael. On the foreground, the youth and the elders signify incessant flow of life. In the center stands a rich man, startled by the appearance of Christ, and a slave whose face, as Ivanov put it, "shows the signs of joy through habitual suffering." The nearest to Christ figure to the right fairly resembles Nikolai Gogol, a Russian writer. The artist also evidently showed himself in the figure of a wanderer with a walking stick, sitting close to John.

[Oil on canvas, 540 x 750 cm]

Gustave Courbet - Woman with a Parrot [1866]

Gustave Courbet - Woman with a Parrot [1866], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Galvanized by the success of Cabanel's ‘Birth of Venus’ at the Salon of 1863, Courbet sought to challenge the French Academy on its own terms with a painting of a nude that would be accepted by the increasingly rigid, and arbitrary, Salon jury. His first attempt, in 1864, was rejected on the grounds of indecency; however two years later, his ‘Woman with a Parrot’ was accepted for the Salon of 1866. While aspects of this painting, notably, the figure's pose and subtly modeled flesh tones, aligned it with academic art, viewers were shocked by the presence of the model's discarded clothing and disheveled hair. Jules-Antoine Castagnary, Courbet's great defender, however, praised the artist for representing a "woman of our time."

[Oil on canvas, 129.5 x 195.6 cm]

Artemisia Gentileschi - Esther before Ahasuerus [c.1630]

Artemisia Gentileschi - Esther before Ahasuerus [c.1630], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

The most famous woman painter of the seventeenth century, Artemisia (Rome, 1593 - Naples, 1651-53) worked in Rome, Florence, Venice, and Naples. This painting, among her most ambitious, dates from about 1630. It recounts the story of the Jewish heroine Esther, who appeared before King Ahasuerus to plead for her people, thus breaking court etiquette and risking death. She fainted in his presence, but her request found favour.

The story is conceived not as a historical recreation but as a contemporary event, with emphasis on elaborate costumes. The picture has been abraded, compromising the brilliant description of the luxurious fabrics. Initially Artemisia included the detail of a black boy restraining a dog - still partly visible beneath the marble pavement, to the left of Ahasuerus's knee.

[Oil on canvas, 208.3 x 273.7 cm]

Vincent van Gogh - Irises [1890]

Vincent van Gogh - Irises [1890], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Upon his arrival at the asylum in Saint-Rémy in May 1889, Van Gogh painted views of the institution's overgrown garden. He ignored still-life subjects during his yearlong hospital stay, but before leaving the artist brought his work in Saint-Rémy full circle with four lush bouquets of spring flowers: two of roses and two of irises, in contrasting formats and colour harmonies.

[Oil on canvas, 73.7 x 92.1 cm]

Pierre-Auguste Renoir - Woman with a Parasol in a Garden [1875]

Pierre-Auguste Renoir - Woman with a Parasol in a Garden [1875], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

In this painting, Renoir's language is wholly impressionistic: in a setting lacking a visible horizon, the flowers and shrubs are created with tiny dabs of colour, providing a constant interweaving of textures around the two small figures. The woman, whose parasol shades her from the sun, stands close to the man as he leans down, perhaps to pick a flower, hinting at an intimate relationship. Contrary to what one may think, this canvas was not painted in the countryside but in the garden of Renoir's new studio in Montmartre. His friend George Rivière recalled: 'As soon as Renoir entered the house, he was charmed by the view of this garden, which looked like a beautiful abandoned park.

[Oil on canvas, 54.5 x 65 cm]

James Abbott McNeill Whistler - The Ocean [1866]

James Abbott McNeill Whistler - The Ocean [1866], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

This painting, exhibited in London in 1892 as ‘Symphony in Grey and Green: The Ocean’, was one of several seascapes Whistler painted in 1866 during a visit to Valparaiso, Chile. The influence of Japanese prints on his work is apparent here in the high horizon, the decorative arrangement of bamboo sprays, and the butterfly monogram that appears both on the picture and on the frame, which was of Whistler’s own design.

[Oil on lined canvas, 80.7 x 101.9 cm]

Erzsébet Korb - Nudes [c.1921]

Erzsébet Korb - Nudes [c.1921], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Erzsébet Korb (1899 - 1925) was a Hungarian painter.

Ivan Ayvazovsky - The Black Sea, (A Storm Begins to Whip up in the Black Sea) [1881]

The Black Sea, (A Storm Begins to Whip up in the Black Sea) [1881], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Ayvazovsky (1817 - 1900) was the best known and most celebrated Russian artist of marine paintings. The sea appears in his paintings as something multifaceted. At times it is an element which is not subjected to any laws and which shatters man; at other times it is tempting in the distance, a symbol of Romantic dream. The viewer beholds an endless expanse of sea and infinite heavens above it. In the foreground there is a wave with whitecaps of foam - the "Ayvazovsky wave" as his contemporaries called it. The palette is unusually rich. It brings together greens, silver tones, emerald tints and extends to the darkening deep blues at the horizon. In the centre we see a lone sailboat, symbol of man's insignificance before the universe and at the same time a sign of the Romantic Wanderlust.

[Oil on canvas, 149 x 208 cm]

Diego Velázquez - Three Musicians [c.1616]

Diego Velázquez - Three Musicians [c.1616], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Diego Velázquez (Seville, 1599 - Madrid, August 6, 1660) was a Spanish Baroque painter and the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV. He started his training under Francisco de Herrera and continued his education in the workshop of Francisco Pacheco, a great art theorist. In 1623 he became court painter in Madrid and gained a great reputation for his portraits of Philip IV. Supported by the King, in 1629 he made his first journey to Italy, where he copied artworks by Tintoretto, Raphael and Michelangelo who, together with Titian, all influenced his paintings from that point on.

[Oil on canvas, 88 x 11 cm]

John Sloan - McSorley's Bar [1912]

John Sloan - McSorley's Bar [1912], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

John French Sloan (August 2, 1871 – September 8, 1951) was an American artist. As a member of The Eight, a group of American artists, he became a leading figure in the Ashcan School of realist artists. He was known for his urban genre painting and ability to capture the essence of neighbourhood life in New York City, often through his window.

McSorley’s Old Ale House was established by John McSorley in 1854. Men of note frequented the saloon and paid homage to the affable John McSorley, described as a quirky, sometimes crusty individual with ‘a lot of unassumed dignity’.

[Oil on canvas, 66.04 x 81.28 cm]

John Singer Sergeant - Repose [1911]

John Singer Sergeant - Repose [1911], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Sargent's inordinate technical facility, coupled with his ability to portray elegant sitters in sumptuous surroundings, made him extremely popular with wealthy patrons on both sides of the Atlantic. Despite his success as one of the most sought-after portraitists of the late Victorian era, Sargent (American, 1856 – 1925) eventually became exasperated by the whim and vanities of prominent sitters. By 1909 he had abandoned conventional portraiture in order to "experiment with more imaginary fields."

The woman in Repose is Sargent's niece, Rose-Marie Ormond Michel. In keeping with his newfound preference for informal figure studies, Sargent did not create a traditional portrait; rather, he depicted Rose-Marie as a languid, anonymous figure absorbed in poetic reverie. The reclining woman, casually posed in an atmosphere of elegiac calm and consummate luxury, seems the epitome of nonchalance - the painting's original title. Sargent seems to have been documenting the end of an era, for the lingering aura of gentility and elegant indulgence conveyed in Repose would soon be shattered by massive political and social upheaval in the early twentieth century.

Vincent van Gogh - Cafe Table with Absinth [1881]

Vincent van Gogh - Cafe Table with Absinth [1881], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

In the 19th century, absinth was a popular drink with many, including artists like van Gogh. This still life shows a solitary glass of absinth on a café table and a bottle of water. Van Gogh combines this with a view through the window. The chosen vantage point makes it feel as though you are yourself sitting at the cafe table where the painter sat. Absinth was usually drunk with water and sugar. A special absinth spoon holding a sugar cube was placed on the glass. Iced water was then trickled over the cube, resulting in the characteristic cloudiness.

[Oil on canvas, 46.2 x 33.3 cm]

Pompeo Batoni - The Crucifixion [1762]

Pompeo Batoni - The Crucifixion [1762], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Batoni (Italian, 1708 - 1787) a native of Lucca, was the son of a goldsmith. He began in his father's workshop but left for Rome in 1727 where he soon acquired a reputation for making fine drawings after the antique, which were often bought by British visitors. During his long career, Batoni executed altarpieces for the Roman churches and history paintings. In the 1750s he turned to portraiture, specialising in providing British gentlemen with a souvenir of their Grand Tour. His sitters are usually posed against a backdrop of Rome or beside some antique fragments, and appear effortlessly at ease with their classical surroundings.

[Oil on canvas, 99.06 x 74.93 cm]

Samuel Bough - Cadzow Forest [1851]

Samuel Bough - Cadzow Forest [1851], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Although born in England, Bough (1822 - 1878) became one of the most influential figures in the development of nineteenth-century Scottish landscape painting. A largely self-taught artist, he spent the early part of his career in Manchester and Glasgow painting scenes for theatrical sets. Bough later dedicated himself to landscape painting, and became adept at illustrating the fleeting effects of weather. This is especially clear in his paintings of Cadzow Forest in South Lanarkshire. He settled in Edinburgh in 1855, and was elected a member of the Royal Scottish Academy the following year. Bough enjoyed tremendous popularity as an artist. His views of rivers and ports of the 1850s and 1860s show his masterful combination of realism and expressive colouring to capture natural effects.

[Oil on canvas, 102.2 x 153 cm]

George Cochran Lambdin - The Consecration [1861]

George Cochran Lambdin - The Consecration [1861], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Although farewell rituals were enacted in numerous homes during the Civil War, artists rarely depicted them. In Lambdin's portrayal, a woman kisses her husband's sword as an oath of honour, declaring her loyalty to him and her commitment to the nation's good. Painted during the fourth year of the war, when both sides were exhausted, the picture evokes the patriotic zeal and idealism that had marked the war's early days and perhaps commemorates the many soldiers who would not return to their loved ones. Lambdin may also have intended to refer to the ultimate reconciliation of the North and the South, which was commonly equated with a marriage in which the North was the husband and the South the wife. Lambdin's woman, dressed in grey in contrast to her husband's dark blue Union uniform, may thus imply the expected allegiance of the South to the reunited nation

[Oil on canvas, 61 x 46.4 cm]

Ignacy Machlanski - Problem [1934]

Ignacy Machlanski - Problem [1934], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Oil on canvas, 101.8 x 76.4 cm]

Egbert van der Poel - A View of Delft after the Explosion of 1654 [1654]

Egbert van der Poel - A View of Delft after the Explosion of 1654 [1654], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

On Monday, October 12, 1654, shortly after half past eleven in the morning, one of Delft's gunpowder stores exploded and destroyed a large part of the city. This painting by van der Poel shows the terrible damage caused by the explosion. In the distance against the horizon the two major churches of the city, the Oude and the Niewe Kerk, stand relatively intact. Between them is the Town Hall tower. The church on the extreme right is the chapel of the Hospital of St George in Noordeinde. To the right of the picture is the area where the gunpowder had been stored; all that remains are a crater filled with water, some burnt trees, roofless houses, and piles of rubble. In the foreground, people are busy helping the wounded and comforting one another. Two men crossing a bridge on the left of the picture carry a basket containing the few belongings they have managed to salvage. 

When the store exploded, it contained about 90,000 pounds of gunpowder. Although the number of people killed is not known, it has been estimated that there were hundreds of deaths. Among the casualties was one of Delft's most famous painters, Carel Fabritius.

[Oil on oak, 36.2 x 49.5 cm]

Alfred Wallis - Cornish Cutter

Alfred Wallis - Cornish Cutter, a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Alfred Wallis (Devonport, August 18, 1855 – August 29, 1942) was a Cornish fisherman and artist. On leaving school Alfred became an apprentice basket maker before becoming a mariner in the merchant service by the early 1870s. His paintings are an excellent example of naive art: perspective is ignored and an object's scale is often based on its relative importance in the scene. This gives many of his paintings a map-like quality. Wallis painted his seascapes from memory, in large part because the world of sail he knew was being replaced by steamships. As he himself put it, his subjects were "what use To Bee out of my memery what we may never see again..." Having little money, Wallis improvised with materials, mostly painting on cardboard ripped from packing boxes using a limited palette of paint brought from ships chandlers.

[Oil on board covered in dark green cloth, 6.5 x 7.5 inches]

Jan Victors - A Village Scene with a Cobbler [c.1650]

Jan Victors - A Village Scene with a Cobbler [c.1650], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

The costume of the old woman on the left, with its prominent gold braiding on the bodice, was traditional dress in the Province of North Holland. In the right background a quack has set up his stall beneath his distinctive Chinese umbrella. The model for the cobbler reappears in Victors' The Swine Butcher, signed and dated 1648 (Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) and in another picture of 1651 (York, City Art Gallery). This picture was probably painted in about 1650.

Jan Victors was born and worked in Amsterdam; he may have studied with Rembrandt in the years around 1640. In 1676 Victors went to the Dutch East Indies and apparently died there. He was a painter of religious and genre subjects.

[Oil on canvas, 63 x 78.5 cm]

Lawrence Alma-Tadema - The Meeting of Anthony and Cleopatra

Lawrence Alma-Tadema - The Meeting of Anthony and Cleopatra, a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Oil on canvas, 25.75 x 36 inches]

Jean-Louis Forain - Elegant Woman at the Beach [1885]

Jean-Louis Forain - Elegant Woman at the Beach [1885], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Oil on panel, 24 x 18.7 cm]

Tsugouharu Foujita - Reclining Nude [1922]

Tsugouharu Foujita - Reclining Nude [1922], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Tsuguharu Foujita (Tokyo, November 27, 1886 - Zurich, January 29, 1968) was a Japanese painter and printmaker who applied Japanese ink techniques to Western style paintings. Foujita had his first studio at 5 Rue Delambre in Montparnasse where he became the envy of everyone when he eventually made enough money to install a bathtub with hot running water. Many models came over to Foujita's place to enjoy this luxury, among them Man Ray’s very liberated lover Kiki, who boldly posed for Foujita in the nude in the outdoor courtyard. He died of cancer in Zurich, Switzerland.

Alfred James Munnings - Maurice Sketching by the Bridge at Wiston

Alfred James Munnings - Maurice Sketching by the Bridge at Wiston, a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Oil on canvas, 20.125 x 24 inches]

Édouard Leon Cortès - Les Grands Boulevards Porte Martin et Port Denis

Édouard Leon Cortès - Les Grands Boulevards Porte Martin et Port Denis, a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Édouard Leon Cortès (Lagny-sur-Marne, August 8, 1882 – Lagny-sur-Marne, November 28, 1969) was a French post-impressionist artist of French and Spanish ancestry. He is known as "Le Poete Parisien de la Peinture" or "the Parisian Poet of Painting" because of his beautiful and diverse Paris cityscapes in a variety of weather and night settings.

[Oil on canvas, 73 x 91 cm]