Ludolf Bakhuizen - The Eendracht and a Fleet of Dutch Men-of-War [c.1670-75]

The Eendracht and a Fleet of Dutch Men-of-War [c.1670-75], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

The main vessel in the centre is the Eendracht which was built in 1653, and was the 76-gun flagship of Lieutenant Admiral Jacob van Wassenaer van Obdam. She was blown up, with the loss of her crew and the admiral, at the battle of Lowestoft in 1665, which was an English victory. On the stern is the ship's name and the lion of the Dutch United Provinces. Yet the painting is not accurate in all details; it was made in the 1670s, after the destruction of the ship, probably on the basis of earlier drawings. Bakhuizen (1630-1708) was born in Emden; in about 1650 he settled in Amsterdam. He specialised in seascapes, almost invariably with rough water. 

[Oil on canvas, 75.5 x 105.5 cm]

Vincent van Gogh - The Sower [1888]

Vincent van Gogh - The Sower [1888], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

In a letter to his sister in September 1888 Vincent van Gogh writes, "I do not need Japanese things any more, since here I am in Japan".

The Sower, painted in October 1888 in Arles, might have been painted in such a mood. West and East are here fused. The sower looms on the left, his immemorial activity hallowed by the huge ball of the rising sun; a tree beside him divides the picture diagonally and accents the fields still lying in violet twilight. The symbolic tree is an old Japanese motif; van Gogh had copied Hiroshige’s plum trees, in Paris, from "100 views of famous places in Edo". This is also the dominant theme of the painting.

[Oil on canvas, 64 x 80.5 cm]

Garofalo - An Allegory of Love [c.1527-39]

Garofalo - An Allegory of Love [c.1527-39], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Garofalo worked at Ferrara and this ambitious composition of about 1530, probably a court commission, reflects the influence of the mythological paintings sent to that city by Titian in the 1520s. Its subject is mysterious: a contrast may be intended between the two pairs of lovers. An episode in a romance involving twins is also a possibility.

[Oil on canvas, 127 x 177.8 cm]

Moses Soyer - Artists on WPA [1935]

Moses Soyer - Artists on WPA [1935], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Dedicated to art expression with social-realist themes of the Depression Era in America, Moses Soyer (Borisoglebsk, Russia, 1899 - New York, 1974) was one of three artistic brothers, the others being Raphael and Isaac. Raphael Soyer was Moses' identical twin. Later in his career, Moses Soyer turned to the depiction of female figures, especially ballet dancers.

The Works Progress Administration (renamed in 1939 to the Work Projects Administration; WPA) was the largest New Deal agency, employing millions of people and affecting almost every locality in the United States, especially rural and western mountain populations. It was created by Franklin Delano Roosevelt's presidential order, and funded by Congress with passage of the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935 on April 8, 1935. The legislation had passed in the House by a margin of 329 to 78, but got bogged down in the Senate. 

[Oil on canvas, 91.7 x 107.0 cm]

Lucas Cranach II - Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery

Lucas Cranach II - Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery, a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

The Gospel relates an episode with a woman who was taken in adultery and brought to Christ by the Pharisees. Under Mosaic law the punishment for the offense was stoning and the Pharisees wanted to know what they were to do with the woman. Christ said them: "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her". At this the woman's accusers went away mortified.

Depicted in the centre of the composition is Christ wearing a red cloak. Next to him is the woman sinner with downcast eyes. She is a typical Cranach beauty dressed in the 16th century fashion. They are surrounded by a crowd of people (the Pharisees, apostles and warriors) who represent a variety of human characters. The reverse of the canvas bears an inscription in Latin which says that in the 18th century the painting was mistakenly taken by the work of Albrecht Dürer. The picture painted on a panel was split and damaged. By order of Catherine II the artist Georg Leopold Pfandzelt transferred it from panel to a copperplate in 1770.

[Oil on copperplate, 84 x 123 cm]

Abraham van Calraet - Scene on the Ice Outside Dordrecht [c.1665]

Abraham van Calraet - Scene on the Ice Outside Dordrecht [c.1665], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Dordrecht is seen here from the north, across the river Maas. In the left background is the Groothoofdspoort, a watergate which still survives, although it was altered in the late 17th century. To the right of it is the the Grote Kerk which is largely unchanged today. Although the costumes in the painting are of the 1660s, the picture may have been executed later.

Abraham van Calraet (Dordrecht, October 7-12, 1642 – Amsterdam, June 11, 1722) was a Dutch Golden Age painter and engraver.

[Oil on oak, 33.5 x 57.5 cm]

Imitator of Jean-Simeon Chardin - Still Life with Bottle, Glass and Loaf

Still Life with Bottle, Glass and Loaf - Imitator of Jean-Simeon Chardin , a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Chardin's still-life paintings were enormously influential in the 19th century. Although this painting has in the past been attributed to the artist, on stylistic grounds it is now recognised as a 19th-century imitation.

[Oil on canvas, 38.1 x 45.1 cm]

Eugene Fromentin - An Encampment in the Atlas Mountains [c.1865]

Eugene Fromentin - An Encampment in the Atlas Mountains [c.1865], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

In this spacious view, characteristic of the artist's production in the mid-sixties, the bold silhouettes of the horsemen, their generalized treatment and the essentially static composition reaffirm the classical character of Fromentin's (French, 1820 - 1876) painting. Shown are a group of Arabs examining a horse being displayed for sale.

[Oil on canvas, 105 x 143.3 cm]

Charles-Philogene Tschaggeny - An Episode on the Field of Battle [1848]

Charles-Philogene Tschaggeny - An Episode on the Field of Battle [1848], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

This painting is probably intended to show a battle in the English Civil War. It was presumably painted during the artist's stay in England, and was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1850. Tschaggeny (1815 – 1894) was born in Brussels. He was taught by Verboeckhoven. In 1848-50 he worked in England. He died near Brussels. He was a figure and animal painter, and an engraver.

[Oil on canavs, 145.5 x 195 cm]

Gustave Baumann - Plum and Peach Bloom [1915]

Gustave Baumann - Plum and Peach Bloom [1915], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

While still a young boy, Baumann (Magdeburg, Germany, 1881 - Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1971) emigrated with his family from Magdeburg, Germany, to Chicago. He returned to Germany to study at Kunstgewerbeschule in Munich and later attended the Art Institute of Chicago. After moving to Santa Fe in 1918, he became a leading member of the art community, respected for services he performed on behalf of his colleagues and for his experiments in a wide variety of media. Baumann was appointed area coordinator of the Public Works of Art Project of the Works Progress Administration beginning in the early 1930s. During this time, he also carved and decorated a large number of marionettes, with which he and his wife and other artists toured the state, acting out Hispanic and Indian folk stories. In 1939, he published Frijoles Canyon Pictographs, illustrated with woodblock prints of prehistoric Indian designs and figures carved in the canyon walls. Later he incorporated such anthropological imagery into his art.

[Colour woodcut on paper, 50.3 x 67.8 cm]

Titian and Workshop - The Vendramin Family [c.1540-55]

Titian and Workshop - The Vendramin Family [c.1540-55], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

The sitters are Gabriel Vendramin, the collector of works of art, Andrea Vendramin (died 1547), and the latter's seven sons. The reliquary of the True Cross on the altar still exists. It was presented to an earlier Andrea Vendramin, Guardian of the Scuola di St. Giovanni Evangelista, Venice, on behalf of this confraternity in 1369. On one occasion he is said to have rescued it from a canal. The painting of the children, with the exception of the boy holding a puppy on the right, is by the artist's workshop.

[Oil on canvas, 206.1 x 288.5 cm]

John Atkinson Grimshaw - Under the Moonbeams, Knostrop Hill

John Atkinson Grimshaw - Under the Moonbeams, Knostrop Hill, a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Grimshaw (Leeds, September 6, 1836 – Leeds, October 13, 1893) was primarily influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites. True to the Pre-Raphaelite style, he put forth landscapes of accurate colour and lighting, and vivid detail. He often painted landscapes that typified seasons or a type of weather; city and suburban street scenes and moonlit views of the docks in London, Leeds, Liverpool, and Glasgow also figured largely in his art. By applying his skill in lighting effects, and unusually careful attention to detail, he was often capable of intricately describing a scene, while strongly conveying its mood. His paintings of dampened gas-lit streets and misty waterfronts conveyed an eerie warmth as well as alienation in the urban scene.

Julius Olsson - Twilight Moon

Julius Olsson - Twilight Moon, a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Of Swedish descent, Olsson (1864 - 1942) was portrayed by contemporary reviewers as a latter-day Viking, roaming abroad on the briny-deep with paintbrush and easel, capturing images of the sea in all of its many moods. He was indeed an accomplished yachtsman who knew “the coast from the Scillies to the Isle of Wight as well as most men know their way to the nearest Railway station.” There was one time of day, however, which Olsson was felt to have made peculiarly his own: “It is that tender half-time between day and night, when the moon, as yet but a pale disc, peeps over the distant horizon and lays a ribbon of golden sheen across the pale waters.” A painting of this subject, Moonlit Shore, (London, Tate Britain) was acquired by the Chantrey Bequest from the Royal Academy in 1911, at the height of Olsson’s popularity.

[Oil on canvas, 61 x 76 cm]

Edmund Blair Leighton - The End of the Song [1902]

Edmund Blair Leighton - The End of the Song [1902], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Oil on canvas, 147.32 x 128.52 cm]

Louis-Jean-Francois Lagrenee - Venus and Nymphs Bathing [1776]

Louis-Jean-Francois Lagrenee - Venus and Nymphs Bathing [1776], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Louis-Jean-Francois Lagrenee (Paris, December 30, 1724 - Paris, June 19, 1805) was a French painter. In 1804 Napoleon conferred on him the cross of the Legion D’honneur, and on June 19, 1805 he died in the Louvre, of which he was honorary keeper.

[Oil on canvas, 85 x 100 cm]

Frank Weston Benson - Summer [1900]

Frank Weston Benson - Summer [1900], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Frank Weston Benson (Salem, Massachusetts, March 24, 1862 - Salem, November 15, 1951) was an American artist. 

[Oil on canvas, 36.125 x 44.5 inches]

Childe Hassam - Allies Day, May 1917 [1917]

Childe Hassam - Allies Day, May 1917 [1917], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Hassam had studied in Paris from 1886-1889 and was strongly influenced by the impressionists. In many respects, Allies Day resembles the vibrant boulevard paintings of Monet and Pissarro. Like these contemporary French artists, Hassam selected a high vantage point overlooking a crowded urban thoroughfare to achieve an illusion of dramatic spatial recession. But, rather than using daubs of shimmering pigment to dissolve form, he applied fluid parallel paint strokes to create an architectonic patterning. Although he shared the impressionists' interest in bright colours, broken brushwork, and modern themes, Hassam's overall approach was less theoretical and his pictorial forms remained far more substantial than those of his European contemporaries.

[Oil on canvas, 92.7 x 76.8 cm]

Rubens - Cimon and Pero

Rubens - Cimon and Pero, a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

At first this seems a strange subject for a painting: a young woman giving her breast to an old man tied up in chains in a bare prison cell. In fact it is a story from Roman History. 

Cimon is Pero's father. He is in prison awaiting execution and has been given nothing to eat. Pero has recently had a child and saves her father from starvation by secretly giving him her breast. This relatively large picture was painted by the famous Antwerp artist, Peter Paul Rubens. To enliven the scene, Rubens has added two prying prison guards on the right.

Pero is portrayed as a voluptuous young woman. Strong, fleshy women like Pero became Rubens's trademark. Today they are often called 'Rubens women'. Even the starving Cimon is portrayed with a strong body and substantial amount of fat. Rubens was skilled at painting the human body: here he has rendered the old man in a highly convincing way, using rough brush marks of beige-yellow, pink and blue. He has also used rapid strokes of the brush and lively colours for the woman's blond hair and red dress. This style is characteristic of Rubens's later work. The raw, grey prison walls in the background provide a wonderful contrast.

[Oil on canvas, 155 x 190 cm]

Camille Pissarro - Quai Malaquais, Sunny Afternoon [1903]

Camille Pissarro - Quai Malaquais, Sunny Afternoon [1903], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Pissarro painted four scenes of the Quai Malaquais from the same spot. The largest and most significant of them is the present canvas. The view portrayed here has survived to the present day. Although active, the banks of the Seine were among the less noisy and congested transportation arteries of Paris. Looking out the window of his hotel to the cobblestone street running into the distance, Pissarro, a true Impressionist, was charmed by the mutability of everything that fell into his field of vision. But here, the motif of actual physical activity, in particular the motion of the carriages, is less important. Nevertheless, Pissarro, by various means, chiefly through the diagonals and curves in the composition, creates the sense of a dynamic Paris street at midday. At the same time it is noteworthy that the entire series is distinguished by the centralised, even stage-like nature of the arrangement. In the present picture, the canopies of the trees to the left and the corner of the building to the right frame this outdoor stage. This canvas was one of the artist's last works.

[Oil on canvas, 65.3 x 81.5 cm]

Jan Both - Italian Landscape with Draughtsman [c.1650]

Jan Both - Italian Landscape with Draughtsman [c.1650], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

In a shady spot beside a raging mountain stream, a small group is taking a rest from the journey. One of the travellers, on the left by the bridge, is drawing. The paper is illuminated by a ray of sun falling directly across it. A shepherd is looking over the draughtsman's shoulder. The sunlight also draws attention to the herd of goats on the far left and to the other people, the travellers and goat herds, who are sitting on the rocks either side of the ravine. Others continue on their way, their luggage being carried by mules. This is unmistakably a southern landscape conjured up by the painter, a piece of Italy bathed in warm sunlight. Jan Both painted this large picture in around 1650.

[Oil on canvas, 187 x 240 cm]

Jacob Adriaensz Backer - Granida and Daifilo [c.1635]

Jacob Adriaensz Backer - Granida and Daifilo [c.1635], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Jacob Adriaensz Backer (Harlingen, Netherlands, 1609 - Amsterdam, August 27, 1651) was a Dutch Golden Age painter. He produced about 140 paintings in twenty years. In his style he was influenced by Wybrand de Geest, Rubens, and Abraham Bloemaert. Also his drawings (male and female nudes) are highly interesting and skillful. He never painted a townscape or landscape.

[Oil on canvas, 125 x 161.5 cm]

Lorenzo J Hatch - Sketch on the Potomac [1883]

Lorenzo J Hatch - Sketch on the Potomac [1883], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

The Imperial government of China asked two Americans, Lorenzo J. Hatch (Dorset, Vermont, 1857 – China, 19140 and William A. Grant, to establish a Chinese Bureau of Engraving and Printing. Hatch was a renowned artist and engraver whose experience included more than 15 years at the United States Bureau of Engraving and Printing. Hatch had also spent a number of years working at both the Western Banknote Company of Chicago and the International Bank Note Company. After overcoming some initial reluctance, Lorenzo Hatch signed a six-year contract with the Chinese government. Lorenzo Hatch designed most of China's paper money from 1908 to his death in 1914. 

[Watercolour on paper, 20.3 x 29.5 cm]

Emile Claus - A Corner of My Garden [1901]

Emile Claus - A Corner of My Garden [1901], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Emile Claus (September 27, 1849 – June 14, 1924) was a Belgian painter. Emile Claus was born in Sint-Eloois-Vijve, a village in West-Flanders (Belgium), at the banks of the river Lys. Emile was the twelfth child in a family of thirteen. Father Alexander was a grocer-publican and for some time town councillor. Mother Celestine Verbauwhede came from a Brabant skipper’s family and had her hands full with her offspring. As a child, little Emile already loved drawing and on Sunday went three kilometres on foot to the Academy of Waregem (the neighbouring town) to learn how to draw. He graduated from the Academy with a gold medal. 

Artistically, Claus soon prospered. As a celebrity, he became a friend of the family with amongst others the French sculptor Auguste Rodin and the naturalist Emile Zola, and with the Belgian novelists and poets Cyriel Buysse, Emile Verhaeren, Pol de Mont and Maurice Maeterlinck. He travelled around the world to attend exhibitions of his work. On June 14, 1924, Claus died at Astene and is buried in his own garden in Astene.

Martha Moffett Bache - Wartime Marketing [1942]

Martha Moffett Bache - Wartime Marketing [1942], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Martha Moffett Bache (Flint, Michigan, 1893 – Washington, District of Columbia, 1983) was an American artist.

[Oil on canvas, 61.8 x 48.2 cm]

George Overbury 'Pop' Hart - Village Scene

George Overbury 'Pop' Hart - Village Scene, a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Born in Cairo, Illinois in 1868, “Pop” Hart was a self-taught artist except for brief periods at the Art Institute of Chicago and Academie Julian in Paris. After travelling extensively in Europe, South America, and the West Indies, he settled in Los Angeles in the early 1920s. He died there on September 9, 1935.

[Oil on canvas, 76.1 x 91.2 cm]

Pieter Quast - A Man and a Woman in a Stableyard [c.1630s]

Pieter Quast - A Man and a Woman in a Stableyard [c.1630s], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

It is the artist's intention to ridicule the soldier. He is a swaggering, over-dressed figure who might have stepped from the pages of one of the many contemporary plays by Coster, Rodenburgh and others that mocked the pretensions of soldiers. Quast painted a number of satirical subjects with a strongly caricatural element. He also painted some historical and literary scenes and worked as a printmaker and book illustrator.

[Oil on oak, 45.4 x 57.5 cm]

David Teniers the Younger - A Man Holding a Glass and an Old Woman Lighting a Pipe [c.1645]

David Teniers the Younger - A Man Holding a Glass and an Old Woman Lighting a Pipe [c.1645], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

This work is not recorded prior to the mid-18th century. It has been suggested that the signature is not above suspicion, but there is no reason to doubt the attribution to Teniers. The handling of the paint is comparable to that in his Boors Carousing in the Wallace Collection, London, which is dated 1644. This work may have been painted a little later. Tavern scenes of this sort, and more specifically the pose of the peasant raising his glass, may derive from the work of Adriaen Brouwer.

[Oil on oak, 23.8 x 34.3 cm]

Phillips Wouwermans - Seashore with Fishwives Offering Fish [1650-68]

Phillips Wouwermans - Seashore with Fishwives Offering Fish [1650-68], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

The white horse carries a fishing net on its back; in the distance at the right two boats can be seen by the shore. This picture was exhibited at the British Institution in 1818 as the artist's last painting. There is no stylistic reason for this tradition. The back of the panel is stamped with the arms of the first recorded owner, Queen Isabella Farnese (wife of Philip V of Spain, died 1766).

[Oil on oak, 35.3 x 41.2 cm]

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot - Seine and Old Bridge at Limay [1872]

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot - Seine and Old Bridge at Limay [1872], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Oil on canvas, 40.60 x 66 cm]

Mikhail Nesterov - The Vision of Youth Bartholomew [1890-91]

Mikhail Nesterov - The Vision of Youth Bartholomew [1890-91], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Mikhail Vasilyevich Nesterov (Ufa, May 31, 1862 – Moscow, October 18, 1942) was a leading representative of religious Symbolism in Russian art. He studied under Pavel Tchistyakov at the Imperial Academy of Arts, but later allied himself with the group of artists known as the Peredvizhniki. His canvas The Vision of the Youth Bartholomew (1890–91), depicting the conversion of medieval Russian saint Sergii Radonezhsky, is often considered to mark the inauguration of the Russian Symbolist movement.

Garofalo - The Vision of Saint Augustine [c.1520]

Garofalo - The Vision of Saint Augustine [c.1520], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Saint Augustine talked to a child (centre) who was trying to empty the sea into a hole dug in the sand. When Saint Augustine told him that this was impossible, the child, a messenger from God, replied that Augustine, who was pondering how to explain the Trinity, was engaged on an equally impossible task. 

Saint Augustine is accompanied by Saint Catherine of Alexandria, with her traditional attribute of a wheel. Saint Stephen, who was one of the first deacons of the church and was stoned to death in about AD 35, is probably the saint visible (perhaps holding stones) in the left background. In the top left corner the Virgin and Child appear upon the clouds with Saint Joseph and music-making angels.

[Oil on wood, 64.5 x 81.9 cm]

Attilio Pratella - Rainy Day in Vomero, Naples

Attilio Pratella - Rainy Day in Vomero, Naples, a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Attilio Pratella (Lugo di Romagna, 1856 - Naples, 1949) was an Italian painter. His favourite subjects were Naples with its markets and animated waterfronts, along with the neighbouring hills of Vomero, the island of Capri, and the coastline of Sorrento.

[Oil on canvas, 40 x 45 cm]

Jean-Joseph Taillasson - Virgil Reading the Aeneid to Augustus and Octavia [1787]

Virgil Reading the Aeneid to Augustus and Octavia [1787], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

The poet Virgil reads to the Emperor Augustus and his sister Octavia a passage from the Aeneid, in praise of Octavia's dead son Marcellus. She swoons with grief. The subject is from the Life of Virgil by Donatus.

Taillasson was born in Bordeaux. He trained in Paris as a pupil of Vien, a neo-classical artist, who also taught David. Taillasson became a member of the Academy in 1784. He painted mostly subject pictures based on ancient history and regularly exhibited at the Salon in Paris.

[Oil on canvas, 147.2 x 166.9 cm]

Eugene Boudin - Trouville, The Port [1894]

Eugene Boudin - Trouville, The Port [1894], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

This painting was sold by Sotheby's on May 9, 2007 for US $60,000.

[Oil on panel, 27 x 21.2 cm]

Stanhope Forbes - Causewayhead, Penzance [1943]

Stanhope Forbes - Causewayhead, Penzance [1943], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Oil on canvas, 77 x 61 cm]

Mary Cassatt - The Loge [1882]

Mary Cassatt - The Loge [1882], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

A number of artists, including Degas, Renoir, and Cassatt, depicted women at the theatre. While Degas took many of his subjects from the stage and orchestra pit, Cassatt and Renoir focused on the audience. Reflected behind these two young women are rings of theater seats and a massive chandelier; clearly, they are sitting in luxurious boxes with mirrored walls. Like Cassatt herself, they belong to wealthy, proper families. Their careful posture is reserved, almost stiff with decorum. It would have distinguished them, despite their bare shoulders, from some other women in the audience who were coquettes brought to the opera by their lovers.

Not all the display at the theatre occurred on stage, and the young women are equally on view, sitting forward to be seen. But the social code prohibits proper, unmarried young women from looking at others. The woman holding the fan is probably Mary Ellison, a friend of the artist visiting from Philadelphia. Even from behind this screen her gaze is cast modestly down. The other woman, perhaps the daughter of poet Stephane Mallarmé, is more forthright than her companion. The two seem to be mirror reflections of each other; while the young Philadelphian hides shyly, her friend is poised with self-confidence to receive the attention of other theatre patrons.

[Oil on canvas, 79.8 x 63.8 cm]

Julius Sergius von Klever - Birch Forest [1883]

Julius Sergius von Klever - Birch Forest [1883], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Julius Sergius von Klever (1850 – 1924) was a Russian landscape painter with Baltic German parents. 

[Oil on canvas, 115.5 x 142.5 cm]

Jean-Léon Gérôme - Greek Slave [1870]

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

During the Franco-Prussian war (October 1870), an English journalist and an American journalist visited Gérôme's studio in Bougival. The American took away this unfinished painting, supposedly to deliver it to a lawyer, but instead apparently returning to Chicago with it. Later, Charles Gilman of Chicago recalled seeing the painting in an antique shop, where his friend M. P. Kennard of Boston had purchased it. When the Boston Museum of Fine Arts acquired it in 1887, Gérôme was flattered that the painting had been acquired by a museum and offered to sign it.

[Oil on canvas, 54 x 37.1 cm]

Arthur Hacker - Return from the Matinée, Piccadilly Circus [1911]

Arthur Hacker - Return from the Matinée, Piccadilly Circus [1911], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Evoking the foggy atmosphere for a wintry evening and the yellow light created by the gas-fired lamps, Return from the Matinée, Piccadilly Circus belongs to a group of paintings, three of which were exhibited at the Royal Academy that year. In a re-run of the RA show, The Studio called them “three remarkable tone and colour studies of London at night.” Hacker (1858 - 1919) was well established by the time he produced these works. He had trained at the Royal Academy schools for four years, prior to a period of study at Bonnat’s atelier in Paris and further travels on the continent. He commenced exhibiting at the Royal Academy in 1878 Romantic and Symbolist-inspired compositions and he was also much sought after as a society portraitist. Hacker was invited to exhibit at the first NEAC show of 1886, was elected as an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1894 and became a full Academician in 1910.

[Oil on canvas, 50.8 x 61 cm]

Francois Boucher - Toilette of Venus [1751]

Francois Boucher - Toilette of Venus [1751], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Madame de Pompadour, the mistress of Louis XV, greatly admired Boucher (1703 - 1770) and was his patroness from 1747 until her death in 1764. This famous work is one of a pair that she commissioned for the dressing room at Bellevue, her château near Paris. In 1750 she had acted the title role in a play, staged at Versailles, and while this is not a portrait, a flattering allusion may well have been intended.

The bodies of the goddess of love and her cupids are soft, supple, and blond. The carved and gilded rococo sofa, the silk, velvet, and gold damask drapery, and the incense burner are heavy and elaborate enough for the Victorian era. It seems quite reasonable that this picture would have appealed to millionaire William K. Vanderbilt, who bought it in the late nineteenth century.

[Oil on canvas, 108.3 x 85.1 cm]

Aelbert Cuyp - Ubbergen Castle [c.1655]

Aelbert Cuyp - Ubbergen Castle [c.1655], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Ubbergen is near Nijmegen in the Province of Gelderland. The castle, which had long been a ruin, was pulled down in 1712. Because of its partial destruction during the Spanish occupation in 1582, the 14th-century castle was seen by the Dutch as a national symbol. Thus Cuyp's luminous depiction of the building may well have evoked patriotic feelings in contemporary viewers. 

Aelbert Cuyp (Dordrecht, October 20, 1620 – Dordrecht , November 15, 1691) was one of the leading Dutch landscape painters of the Dutch Golden Age. After he married Cornelia Boschman in 1658, the number of works produced by him declined almost to nothing. This may have been because his wife was a very religious woman and a very big patron of the arts. It could also be that he became more active in the church under his wife's guidance.

[Oil on oak, 32.1 x 54.5 cm]

Francois Flameng - Reception at Compiegne [1894-96]

Francois Flameng - Reception at Compiegne [1894-96], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Oil on panel, 104 x 138 cm]

Maurice Denis - Psyche’s Kin Bid Her Farewell on a Mountain Top

Maurice Denis - Psyche’s Kin Bid Her Farewell on a Mountain Top, a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Oil on canvas, 200 x 275 cm]

Alfred Sisley - The Watering Place at Marly-le-Roi [c.1875]

Alfred Sisley - The Watering Place at Marly-le-Roi [c.1875], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Sisley lived in Marly-le-Roi, west of Paris, from 1875-77. There he painted numerous pictures of the elegant watering-place, one of the few remains of Louis XIV's summer palace, which was destroyed in 1793. Here it is shown in the winter, its surface almost completely frozen and covered with snow.

Alfred Sisley was born in Paris of British parents. He lived in France, and occasionally visited England. He trained in the studio of Gleyre in Paris, and became a member of the Impressionist group. He mainly painted landscapes.

[Oil on canvas, 49.5 x 65.4 cm]

Gustave Courbet - The Wave [1869]

Gustave Courbet - The Wave [1869], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

During the summer of 1869, Courbet stayed at Etretat, the small Norman town where Delacroix, Boudin and Jongkind had already spent time painting the sea. The chalk cliffs, the subtle light, along with both the violent storms and the calm of the waves in this region of changing skies, offered Courbet new subjects.

Here, the artist offers an intense vision of the stormy sea, tormented and disturbing, with all the savage power of natural forces at work. Applying thick paint with a kitchen knife, Courbet succeeded in conveying an impression of eternity. He composed his picture in three horizontal bands: the shore, where two fishing boats lie, the waves, painted in a range of dark greens highlighted with the white of the foam, and the lowering sky.

[Oil on canvas, 112 x 144 cm]

Jean Béraud - The Church of Saint-Philippe-du-Roule, Paris

Jean Béraud - The Church of Saint-Philippe-du-Roule, Paris, a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

When this painting was exhibited in the Salon of 1877, it was seen as a document of contemporary Parisian life. Béraud (French, Saint Petersburg, 1849 - Paris, 1936) depicts a view of the rue du Faubourg St.-Honoré, which had recently become a fashionable shopping street. The church was designed in the eighteenth century by the architect J.F. Chalgrin.

[Oil on canvas, 59.4 x 81 cm]

Henri Edmond Cross - Church of Santa Maria degli Angely Near Assisi

Henri Edmond Cross - Church of Santa Maria degli Angely Near Assisi, a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

As a result of a journey to Italy, Henri Edmond Cross (Douai, May 20, 1856 - Saint Clair, May 16, 1910) produced a number of such scenes of Perugia and Assisi. Pointillism (the technique used to produce this work) is a method of painting in which the colour is applied in small dots of paint, the artist breaking complex tones up into pure colours which are then combined by the eye at a distance. Here, the chance nature of Impressionist compositions was replaced by a precisely enclosed construction, and Impressionist spontaneity by the scrupulously methodical application of identical brushstrokes to the canvas, creating the effect of a decorative coloured mosaic.

[Oil on canvas, 73.5 x 92 cm]

Gerrit Berckheyde - The Market Place and Town Hall, Haarlem [c.1691]

Gerrit Berckheyde - The Market Place and Town Hall, Haarlem [c.1691], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

The view is of the west side of the market place (Grote Markt). Facing the spectator is the town hall, which was built in the 14th century as a palace of the Counts of Holland and altered in the 1630s. On the gable of the projecting part of the building is a statue of Justice and, above it, the arms of Haarlem. On the right, beside the town hall, is the beginning of the Zijlstraat. The entrance to the Grote Houtstraat is between the houses on the extreme left. On the roof of the town hall are nesting boxes for storks. 

[Oil on oak, 31.9 x 40.3 cm]

Gustave Leonard de Jonghe - Changeable Weather [1860-70]

Gustave Leonard de Jonghe - Changeable Weather [1860-70], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Gustave Leonard de Jonghe (Kortrijk, 1829 - Antwerp, 1893) was a Belgian painter. Although he started his career painting historical and sacred subject matter, he is famous for his genre paintings with bourgeois themes and rich materials. In 1855, he became in the direct successor of the renowned Belgian painter, Alfred Stevens, in Paris.

[Oil on panel, 70 x 51 cm]

Carl Moll - View of Nussdorf and Helligenstadt in Twilight [c.1905]

Carl Moll - View of Nussdorf and Helligenstadt in Twilight [c.1905], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Carl Moll (Vienna, 1861 - Vienna, 1945) was an Austrian painter. He was a pupil of Emil J. Schindler (the father of Alma Mahler-Werfel née Schindler). After his teacher's death (1892), Moll married Schindler's widow, Anna (née von Bergen). Moll was a founder-member of the Vienna Secession. A Nazi sympathiser, he committed suicide at the end of World War II.