Gallery News

The gallery will be closing tomorrow for a few weeks while I am away on holiday in the United States of America. Allowing for sufficient jet-lag recovery, the next posting will be on Thursday July 12th. May I take this opportunity to thank all the visitors to the Gallery for their continued support.

Kind wishes

Gandalf

Asher Brown Durand - The Beeches [1845]

Asher Brown Durand - The Beeches [1845], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

This work, featuring meticulously rendered beech and basswood trees, was painted for the New York collector Abraham M. Cozzens, then a member of the executive committee of the American Art-Union. The painting illustrates a new trend in the work of the Hudson River School, with its diminished emphasis on sublime drama and increased interest in naturalism and in the creation of a tranquil mood. Durand (American, 1796 - 1886) was influenced by the work of the English landscape painter John Constable, whose vertical formats and truth to nature he absorbed while visiting England in 1840. The Beeches resembles Constable's The Cornfield (National Gallery, London). This work is also the first one Durand based on a plein-air oil sketch, a technique the artist increasingly relied upon to reproduce accurately conditions of light and shade.

[Oil on canvas, 153.4 x 122.2 cm]

Annie Traquair Lang - William Merritt Chase [c.1910]

Annie Traquair Lang - William Merritt Chase [c.1910], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Annie Traquair Lang was born to James Traquair Lang, a Philadelphia lawyer, and his wife Winona in Philadelphia in 1885. Her early education was in the Philadelphia Public School System where she began her studies with J. Liberty Tadd. She then attended the School of Design for Women (now Moore College) where she won the Sartain Prize. Lang then attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where she studied with the artist who had the greatest influence on her, William Merritt Chase. She died in 1918 in New York City.

[Oil on canvas, 76.2 x 63.5 cm]

Asher Brown Durand - Ariadne [c1831-35]

Asher Brown Durand - Ariadne [c1831-35], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Asher Brown Durand (Maplewood, New Jersey, August 21, 1796 - September, 17, 1886) was an American painter of the Hudson River School. Durand is particularly remembered for his detailed portrayals of trees, rocks, and foliage. He was an advocate for drawing directly from nature with as much realism as possible. Durand wrote, "Let [the artist] scrupulously accept whatever [nature] presents him until he shall, in a degree, have become intimate with her infinity...never let him profane her sacredness by a willful departure from truth."

[Oil on canvas, 43.5 x 49.2 cm]

Jan Steen - Dancing Couple [1625-26]

Jan Steen - Dancing Couple [1625-26], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Oil on canvas, 102.5 x 142.5 cm]

Berthe Morisot - Young Woman with a Straw Hat [1884]

Berthe Morisot - Young Woman with a Straw Hat [1884], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Oil on canvas, 55.5 x 46.7 cm]

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot - The Artist’s Studio

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot - The Artist’s Studio, a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

In later life, Corot’s studio was filled with students, models, friends, collectors, and dealers who came and went under the tolerant eye of the master, causing him to quip, “Why is it that there are ten of you around me, and not one of you thinks to relight my pipe.” Dealers snapped up his works and his prices were often above 4,000 francs per painting. With his success secured, Corot gave generously of his money and time. He became an elder of the artists’ community and would use his influence to gain commissions for other artists.

Albert Andre - After Breakfast in Renoir's House [1917]

Albert Andre - After Breakfast in Renoir's House [1917], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Albert Andre (Lyon, May 24, 1869 – 1954) was a renowned Post-Impressionist. He initially worked in the textile industry designing patterns for silk fabrics. In 1889 Andre traveled to Paris and joined the Julian Academy where he studied under William Bouguereau. He exhibited for the first time in 1894 at the Salon des Independants where Auguste Renoir saw his work and befriended him. Renoir introduced Andre to Durand-Ruel who was successful in selling Andre’s work primarily abroad to American collectors. From this positive debut, Andre continued to participate in the avant-garde exhibits, most especially the Salon d’Automne from 1904 to 1944. Like many painters of his generation who followed the Impressionists, Andre was not influenced by a single technique, but by a combination of many.

This painting was sold by Sotheby's on May 8, 2008 for $91,000.

[Oil on canvas, 50 x 64 cm]

Alfred Stevens - After the Ball [1874]

Alfred Stevens - After the Ball [1874], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

This painting, also known as Confidence, is one of several by Stevens (Belgian, Blandford Forum, England, 1823 - London, 1906) to treat the theme of consolation. As in his other works from the 1870s, here the anecdotal content of a letter containing distressing news asserts itself in a glimpse of the life of fashionable Parisian women in their elegant interiors. Stevens's subject matter and his meticulous attention to contemporary dress and decor elicited analogies to seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish art; in fact, one critic called him the Gerard ter Borch of France.

[Oil on canvas, 95.9 x 68.9 cm]

William Bouguereau - Young Mother Gazing at Her Child [1871]

William Bouguereau - Young Mother Gazing at Her Child [1871], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Oil on canvas, 142.2 x 102.9 cm]

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes - Rest [c.1863]

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes - Rest [c.1863], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Oil on canvas, 108.5 x 148 cm]

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes - Work [c.1863]

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes - Work [c.1863], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (December 14, 1824 – October 24, 1898) was a French painter, who became the president and co-founder of the Societe Nationale des Beaux-Arts and whose work influenced many other artists. He was born Pierre-Cécile Puvis de Chavannes in Lyon, Rhone, France, the son of a mining engineer, descendant of an old family of Burgundy. In Montmartre, he had an affair with one of his models, Suzanne Valadon, who would become one of the leading artists of the day as well as the mother, teacher, and mentor of Maurice Utrillo. His work is seen as symbolist in nature, even though he studied with some of the romanticists, and he is credited with influencing an entire generation of painters and sculptors.

[Oil on canvas, 108.5 x 148 cm]

Adélaïde Labille-Guiard - Self-Portrait with Two Pupils, Marie Gabrielle Capet and Marie Marguerite Carreaux de Rosemond [1785]

Adélaïde Labille-Guiard - Self-Portrait with Two Pupils, Marie Gabrielle Capet and Marie Marguerite Carreaux de Rosemond [1785], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Adélaïde Labille-Guiard (French, 1749 - 1803) was apprenticed to a miniaturist and later, in 1769, studied pastel with Maurice Quentin de La Tour. The rich palette and fine detail in the present picture, one of the earliest of her major works in oil, reflect her earlier training. In 1783, when Labille-Guiard and Vigée Le Brun were admitted to the French Royal Academy, the number of women artists eligible for membership was limited to four, and this canvas, which was exhibited to an admiring audience at the Salon of 1785, has been interpreted as a propaganda piece, arguing for the place of women in the Academy. The artist's fashionable dress asserts her femininity, the feminist mood is emphasized by the presence of her pupils and the statue of the Vestal Virgin in the background.

Labille-Guiard achieved a certain success at court and, having painted a number of portraits of the aunts of Louis XVI, she came to be known as "Peintre des Mesdames.” However, she sympathised with the Revolution and, unlike Vigée Le Brun, remained in France throughout her life.

[Oil on canvas, 210.8 x 151.1 cm]

Henri Rousseau - Boy on the Rocks [1895-97]

Henri Rousseau - Boy on the Rocks [1895-97], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Oil on linen, 55.4 x 45.7 cm]

John Lewis Krimmel - Fourth of July in Centre Square [1812]

John Lewis Krimmel - Fourth of July in Centre Square [1812], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

A native of Württemberg, Germany, Krimmel (American, 1786 – 1821) arrived in Philadelphia with his brother in 1809 and almost immediately began recording local social events. His festive scenes mask an underlying renegade quality that allowed him to introduce a new form of painting that expressed a lively, disorganised, democratic impulse. In Fourth of July in Centre Square, various groups celebrate the holiday near the Pump House in Philadelphia yet keep to themselves. Quakers appear on one side, the affluent on the other, and there are clusters of the lower classes in between. Yet everyone is, after all, enjoying the same space and celebration, thus signalling that the time-honoured hierarchical system for social engagement was on the verge of collapse.

[Oil on canvas, 57.8 x 73.7 cm]

Ferdinand de Braekeleer - French Fury in Antwerp

Ferdinand de Braekeleer - French Fury in Antwerp, a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Ferdinand de Braekeleer (Antwerp, February 12, 1792 - Antwerp, May 16, 1883) was a Belgian painter. The son of poor parents, he was first accepted by Mathieu van Brée’s Art School for Orphans and later by the Antwerp Academie. He gained several prizes there in 1809 and 1811, and he distinguished himself in the Paris Salon of 1813.

Jane Emmet de Glehn - The Port of St Tropez

Jane Emmet de Glehn - The Port of St Tropez, a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Jane Erin Emmet de Glehn (New Rochelle, New York, 1873 – 1961) was an American figure and portrait painter. Her great-great-uncle Robert Emmet was a notable Irish nationalist who was hanged in 1803 for high treason by the British court for his attempt to implement an abortive Irish rebellion. Jane Emmet's career began while studying at the New York's Art Students League and studied under Frederick William MacMonnies. Then travelled to Europe to view the work of the Grand Masters and continue her studies. After returning to America, she met and married the notable British impressionist painter Wilfrid de Glehn (1870–1951) in 1904. After her husband's death in 1951, Jane Emmet de Glehn spent much of her time casually sketching her extended family and members of her social circle. She and Wilfrid had no children and she died in 1961.

[Oil on canvas, 43.5 x 53 cm]

Georges Seurat - Lighthouse at Honfleur [1886]

Georges Seurat - Lighthouse at Honfleur [1886], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Oil on canvas, 66.7 x 81.9 cm]

Scott Burdick - From the Dominican Republic

Scott Burdick - From the Dominican Republic, a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Scott Burdick was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1967 where his mother and father early on encouraged his interest in art. "I spent a lot of time in hospitals as a child and remember while there, my mother showing me how to transform simple shapes like circles, triangles, and squares into objects like planes, helicopters, and fish. It seemed such a magical thing and made spending so much time in casts and on crutches much more bearable."

Today, Scott lives in a rural area of North Carolina with his wife, noted artist Susan Lyon. Surrounded by forests and the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, their house is a perfect resting place after the many trips they take throughout the world in search of subject matter to paint.

[Oil on canvas, 60.96 x 76.2 cm]

Jan van Goyen - A Windmill by a River [1642]

Jan van Goyen - A Windmill by a River [1642], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Although it was probably painted in The Hague, this is an outstanding example of the 'tonal phase' of Dutch landscape painting associated with the town of Haarlem. Van Goyen shows a flat landscape, featureless except for the windmill, small figures and distant buildings, as if from the top of a low hill. The sky occupies three-quarters of the picture space in this panoramic view; it is painted in a deliberately restricted palette of grey, brown, black and white enlivened only by a few strokes of yellow and green. The low horizon gives great prominence to the sky and clouds.

Jan Josephsz. van Goyen (1596 - 1656) was one of the main pioneers of naturalistic landscape in early 17th-century Holland. His many drawings show that he travelled extensively in Holland and beyond. In 1634 he is recorded painting in Haarlem, in the house of Isaac, the brother of Salomon van Ruysdael, who was another of the pioneers of realistic landscape painting in the north Netherlands.

[Oil on oak, 29.4 x 36.3 cm]

Edgar Degas - A Beach Scene [c.1869-70]

Edgar Degas - A Beach Scene [c.1869-70], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

This picture has been dated to about 1876-77 but it may have been painted as early as the late 1860s. It was exhibited at the third Impressionist exhibition in 1877. It is almost certain that the central group of a young girl and maid was posed in the studio. In treatment the painting is distinct from the 'open-air' beach scenes of the artist's contemporaries, Claude-Oscar Monet and Eugene Boudin.

[Oil (essence) on paper on canvas, 47.5 x 82.9 cm]

Peter Paul Rubens - Portrait of Susanna Lunden (Le Chapeau de Paille) [c.1622-26]

Peter Paul Rubens - Portrait of Susanna Lunden (Le Chapeau de Paille) [c.1622-26], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

The title Le Chapeau de Paille (The Straw Hat) was first used in the 18th century. In fact the hat is not straw; paille may be an error for poil, which is the French word for felt. The hat, which shades the face of the sitter, is the most prominent feature of the painting. The portrait is probably of Susanna Lunden, born Susanna Fourment, third daughter of Daniel Fourment, an Antwerp tapestry and silk merchant. Her younger sister Helena became Rubens's second wife in 1630. Susanna Fourment married her second husband Arnold Lunden in 1622. The portrait probably dates from about that time. The direct glance of the sitter from under the shadow of the hat, together with the ring on her finger, suggests that the painting is a marriage portrait. 

Rubens enlarged the painting as the work proceeded, adding a third strip of wood on the right and then enlarging the picture at the base. The additions created a greater expanse of sky, and Rubens added clouds to the right that contrast with the clearer sky to the left, from which the light falls across the body and hands.

[Oil on oak, 79 x 54.6 cm]

Paul Gauguin - Field of Derout-Lollichon [1886]

Paul Gauguin - Field of Derout-Lollichon [1886], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Oil on canvas, 59.37 x 92.08 cm]

Style of Bartolome Esteban Murillo - A Young Man Drinking [1700-50]

Style of Bartolome Esteban Murillo - A Young Man Drinking [1700-50], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

The genre study shows a youth with vine leaves wrapped around his head clasping a wine bottle and drinking from a glass. This may be a copy of a lost original by Murillo, or an imitation, perhaps by a French painter of the first half of the 18th century.

[Oil on canvas, 62.8 x 47.9 cm]

Harald Giersing - The Judgement of Paris [1909]

Harald Giersing - The Judgement of Paris [1909], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

The title of this piece refers to the Ancient Greek legend of Paris, who was called upon to decide who was more beautiful of the three goddesses Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite. Giersing’s painting is indeed peopled by three women and a man, but it might just as well be viewed as a studio scene where the women are models posing nude for a man, possibly the painter. At the same time, the prominent use of colour and lines direct attention away from the mythological narrative to the artistic devices used in the painting.

The ambiguity of the motif should be regarded as a deliberate strategy on Giersing’s (1881 - 1927) part. His ambition with this picture was to challenge and reinvent classic figure painting. The coarseness, the pared down palette, the indeterminable placement of the figures within the space, and, very significantly, the thick black contours undulating down the picture plane to form ornamental sequences were all fierce attacks against the finely hewn naturalistic norms prevalent at the time. 

The picture can be viewed as a proposal for a new, modern vein of figure painting that has the reality of art itself as its true content. The painting attracted a great deal of attention when it was first presented to the public in 1910, and it was instrumental in establishing Giersing’s position as one of the most important artists of the young generation of modernists.

Peter Paul Rubens - Samson and Delilah [c.1609-10]

Peter Paul Rubens - Samson and Delilah [c.1609-10], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Samson, the Jewish hero, fell in love with Delilah. She was bribed by the Philistines, and discovered that his strength came from his hair which had never been cut. While he was asleep it was cut, Samson was drained of his strength and the Philistines were able to capture him. Rubens depicts a candlelit interior; the Philistines wait at the door, one of their number cuts Samson's hair, while an elderly woman provides extra light. In a niche behind is a statue of the goddess of love, Venus, with Cupid - a reference to the cause of Samson's fate.

This painting was commissioned by Nicolaas Rockox, alderman of Antwerp, for his town house in 1609-10. It shows the influence of the antique, as well as Michelangelo and Caravaggio. There is a preparatory drawing (private collection, Amsterdam) and a modello (Cincinnati Museum of Art).

[Oil on wood, 185 x 205 cm]

Alessandro Turchi (Orbetto) - Saint Agnes Protected by an Angel [c.1620]

Alessandro Turchi (Orbetto) - Saint Agnes Protected by an Angel [c.1620], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Alessandro Turchi (Verona, 1578 – Rome, January 22, 1649) was an Italian painter of the early Baroque, born and active mainly in Verona, and moving late in life to Rome. He also went by the name Alessandro Veronese or the nickname L'Orbetto.

[Oil on polished marble, 42.55 x 33.02 cm]

Jan Lievens - Bearded Man with a Beret [c.1630]

Jan Lievens - Bearded Man with a Beret [c.1630], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Oil on panel, 53.5 x 46.3 cm]

Paul Cezanne - The Artist’s Son [1885-90]

Paul Cezanne - The Artist’s Son [1885-90], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Oil on canvas, 65.3 x 54 cm]

Gustave Caillebote - Skiffs [1877]

Gustave Caillebote - Skiffs [1877], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Oil on canvas, 88.9 x 116.2 cm]

Dorothea Sharp - Springtime

Dorothea Sharp - Springtime, a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Dorothea Sharp (1874 - 1955) was born in Dartford in Kent in 1874 but it was not until the age of twenty-one that she began her artistic education in earnest. She first studied at the art school run by C. E. Johnson in Richmond, Surrey and later spent some time at the Regent Street Polytechnic. She soon moved to Paris where she was greatly influenced by the work of the Impressionists, which is evident in the spontaneous style and strong sense of colour and light that she is so well known for. Techniques, such as outlining figures with bright colours, were also adopted by Sharp after seeing the paintings of Matisse and van Gogh. 

Sharp exhibited regularly throughout her career at many institutions including the Royal Academy. She was elected to the Royal Society of British Artists in 1907 and the Royal Institute of Oil Painters in 1922 and also was President for four years of the Society of Women Artists. She held her first one woman show at the Connell gallery in 1933. Dorothea Sharp was a landscape and still life painter but is best known for her pictures of children which are frequently shown on the beaches of Cornwall where she lived near St. Ives. The artist died on 17th December 1955. 

[Oil on canvas, 33 x 33 inches]

Gerrit Berckheyde - The Interior of the Grote Kerk, Haarlem [1673]

Gerrit Berckheyde - The Interior of the Grote Kerk, Haarlem [1673], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

This view of the interior of the Grote Kerk or St Bavo, is from the west door, looking towards the choir, and remains much the same today. The choir was built about 1400, the nave after 1470 and the wooden vaulting was erected between 1530 and 1538. The congregation is seated around and facing the pulpit as is the practice in the Dutch Reformed Church. This is the only known dated interior by Gerrit Berckheyde. 

Berckheyde was born in Haarlem, and was probably trained by his elder brother, Job. The brothers visited Germany, including Cologne and Heidelberg, where Gerrit worked at the court of the Elector Palatine. In 1660 he became a member of the Haarlem guild of painters and was mainly active there until his death.

[Oil on oak, 60.8 x 84.9 cm]

Rosa Bonheur and Nathalie Micas - The Horse Fair [1855]

Rosa Bonheur and Nathalie Micas - The Horse Fair [1855], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

The scene is the horse market in Paris, and the dome of La Salpêtrière is visible in the background. Although finished and signed by Bonheur, this painting was begun by the artist's life-long friend, Nathalie Micas. The dealer Ernest Gambart acquired it in 1855, and it was engraved by Thomas Landseer.

Rosalie (Rosa) Bonheur (1822 - 1899) was born in Bordeaux, and moved to Paris in 1829. She was a famous animal painter. She exhibited the original version of The Horse Fair (now in the Metropolitan Museum, New York) at the Salon of 1853, where it won great acclaim. 

[Oil on canvas, 120 x 254.6 cm]

Amadeo Modigliani - Alice [c.1918]

Amadeo Modigliani - Alice [c.1918], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Modigliani (1884 - 1920) worked almost exclusively with the human figure and is particularly well known for his portraits. When he painted this picture his characteristic style of rendering figures was fully formed. The girl is portrayed from the front, and the planes have a geometric order that creates a sense of calm and harmony. African masks and medieval art were important sources of inspiration for Modigliani’s painting. On that basis he developed an idiom made up of simplified, elongated shapes, accentuated here by the tall, narrow format.

Modigliani moved from Italy to Paris in 1906, and in 1908-09 he settled in Montparnasse, where he became part of the international artists’ scene. His eccentric lifestyle and early death has contributed greatly to the myth of the bohemian Paris art scene.

Edward John Poynter - Chloe [1893]

Edward John Poynter - Chloe [1893], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Music and harmony are key to this sophisticated arrangement, which combines the archaeological fidelity of Neo-Classicism with the Aesthetic movement’s devotion to sensual delight. The pipes in the model’s right hand and the lyre leaning against the leopard skin to her left, signify the subjects musical attributes and accomplishment. The bullfinch to which she offers cherries at her feet, also enhances the melodic theme (perhaps a rival to its mistress in terms of musical skill). Music is also obliquely referred to in the painting’s carefully composed colour harmonies and surface patterns, which combine to create a rich decorative effect. The russet, blue and gold of the intricate architectural mouldings are repeated in the beads around Chloe’s neck and picked up again in the blanket upon which she rests. The pale, shimmering tessellated pattern of her Grecian robe is echoed in the pearlised marquetry of the footstool, whose pattern reflects a smaller version of the marble floor. Sight and sound are not the only senses to in this visual feast. The bowl of ripe cherries fulfils the sense of taste, sitting directly below an aperture through which we imagine the fragrance of poppies and foxgloves enters. 

[Oil on canvas, 71.1 x 91.4 cm]

Aelbert Cuyp - A Herdsman with Five Cows by a River [c.1650-55]

Aelbert Cuyp - A Herdsman with Five Cows by a River [c.1650-55], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

This painting is a mature work, probably of the mid-1650s, and shows how a traditional type of composition was transformed by the artist. The scene is illuminated from the left by the warmth of the sun which sparkles on the water, highlighting the reflections of the boats and the cattle. Cuyp (1620 – 1691) painted the subject of a group of cows standing in shallow water on a number of occasions.

[Oil on oak, 45.4 x 74 cm]

Vincent van Gogh - Farmhouse in Provence [1888]

Vincent van Gogh - Farmhouse in Provence [1888], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Van Gogh arrived in Arles in February 1888, the landscape covered with snow. But it was sun that he sought in Provence - a brilliance and light that would wash out detail and simplify forms, reducing the world around him to the kinds of flat patterns he admired in Japanese woodblock prints.

Pairs of complementary colours, the red and green of the plants, the woven highlights of oranges and blue in the fence, even the pink clouds that enliven the turquoise sky, shimmer and seem almost to vibrate against each other. This technique was used by the impressionists to enhance the luminosity of their pictures. 

[Oil on canvas, 46.1 x 60.9 cm]

Frants Henningsen - A Funeral [1883]

Frants Henningsen - A Funeral [1883], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

A pregnant woman and her two small children are following their husband/father to his grave. A thoroughly tragic situation that Henningsen (1850 - 1908) has chosen to accentuate with gloomy winter weather, a meagre gathering, and the woman’s greyish-white complexion.

A burial among the poor, conducted at the Assistens graveyard in the Nørrebro area of Copenhagen. At first glance, the painting seems to be a realistic record of a tragic, life-changing event. However, the artist has employed a number of effective devices in order to intensify the unhappy story. The gloomy winter weather, the naked wall, the small number of people in the gathering, the children in the middle, the greyish-white complexion of the young woman’s face. She even appears to be pregnant and now only has her old father to lean on. Every device is brought to bear in order to accentuate the hopelessness of the situation.

Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg - Bella and Hanna [1820]

Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg - Bella and Hanna [1820], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

During the years around 1820, Eckersberg was busy painting portraits of the affluent citizens of Copenhagen. The artist’s greatest patron during his young years, the merchant Mendel Levin Nathanson, commissioned two large family portraits. n one of the two works he painted Nathanson’s two oldest daughters, Bella and Hanna, in a sparingly furnished drawing room with simple panelling and furniture, including a table bearing a parrot’s cage. The two girls are shown in uncompromising poses, one strictly frontal, the other strictly from the side, and as they look very much alike, it seems likely that the painter wished to create a variation on a theme; variations like those created by the famous Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen around the same time.

The parrot opens up the scene to symbolic readings. Due to their ability to imitate human voices parrots were often seen as symbols of good breeding, a suitable allusion for a picture of two young middle-class woman. At the same time, however, the caged bird can also be regarded as a metaphor for the two unmarried women’s sheltered situation while waiting, perhaps longing, to move out into real life.

Anna Ancher - A Funeral [1891]

Anna Ancher - A Funeral [1891], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Anna Ancher’s first exhibited work depicted two poor colourful characters, Per and Stine Bollerhus, going home from the church in Skagen. Several years later she attended Stine’s funeral and gathered her impressions in the painting A Funeral. As in most of Anna Ancher’s pictures, no-one attempts to create eye contact. We are free to investigate the space unnoticed, find our place, and let ourselves be absorbed by the meditative calm. The low-ceilinged room is filled with light, allowing Anna Ancher (1859 - 1935) an opportunity to demonstrate her mastery of colour in the meeting between the blue, pink, and green hues; colours that also serve a symbolic function in showing the old woman the road to another world. 

Along with Theodor Philipsen (1840-1920), Anna Ancher is regarded as the most important Impressionistic painter on the Danish art scene. But whereas the French Impressionists were intimately linked with modern life, Anna Ancher painted her paintings on the outskirts of the modern: from Skagen, the remotest part of Denmark, more opposed to than in tune with the hectic and the ephemeral.

Louise Catherine Breslau - La Toilette [1898]

Louise Catherine Breslau - La Toilette [1898], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Louise Catherine Breslau (Munich, December 6, 1856 - Paris, May 12, 1927) was a German born Swiss artist. Although she naturalised to Switzerland, she showed her loyalty for the French by drawing numerous portraits of French soldiers and nurses on their way to the World War 1 Front. After the war, Breslau retired from the public and spent much of her time painting flowers from her garden and entertaining friends. In 1927 Breslau died after a long illness.

[Oil on canvas, 24.75 X 25.75 inches]

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec - Ambassadors, Aristide Bruant in his Cabaret [1892]

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec - Ambassadors, Aristide Bruant in his Cabaret [1892], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Aristide Bruant (Courtenay, May 6, 1851 – Paris, February 10, 1925) was a French cabaret singer, comedian, and nightclub owner. He is best known as the man in the red scarf and black cape featured on certain famous posters by Toulouse-Lautrec. He has also been credited as the creator of the chanson realiste musical genre.

[Colour lithograph on paper, 150 x 100 cm]

René Magritte - The Lovers [1928]

René Magritte - The Lovers [1928], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Oil on canvas, 54 x 73.4 cm]

Claude Monet - Bazille and Camille, Study for Déjeuner sur l'Herbe [1865]

Claude Monet - Bazille and Camille, Study for Déjeuner sur l'Herbe [1865], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

An elegant young couple steps into a sunlit clearing from the cool of the Fontainebleau forest. Brightness dances off their clothes, creating the strong highlights that define the curve of the man’s hat and catch the bunched hem of the woman's dress. Shadows fall, not in blacks or grays, but as deeper concentrations of the colours around them.

Monet was one of the young artists who frequented the Café Guerbois, where Manet and other members of the avant-garde discussed art and literature. Monet championed painting out-of-doors as the only way to capture the sensory experience of light and atmosphere. He sought to transcribe a single instant onto the canvas, and here that momentary quality is enhanced by the pose of the couple, who seem only to have paused. Monet knew the pair. The man is his friend and fellow painter Frederic Bazille, described by novelist Emile Zola as we see him: "Blond, tall and thin, very distinguished." The woman may be Monet's mistress Camille, whom he would eventually marry.

This painting was made as an oil sketch for a much larger work (15 x 20 feet) whose size made painting outdoors impossible. Instead Monet made smaller preparatory paintings out-of-doors, including this one. Only fragments of the final large canvas survive. Monet left it with a landlord to cover a debt, and it was ruined by moisture and neglect.

[Oil on canvas, 93 x 68.9 cm]

Constantin Hansen - Group of Danish Artists in Rome [1837]

Constantin Hansen - Group of Danish Artists in Rome [1837], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

A group of Danish artists are gathered in a room in Rome. Not, however, to celebrate as was their wont when meeting each other during their sojourns abroad. The objective of their assembly is far more serious: They are discussing art. Speaking from the floor, the architect Gottlieb Bindesbøll (1800-1856) relates the experiences of his recent travels in Greece, a country that was unfamiliar territory to most Europeans at the time due to the many years of Turkish occupation. The other artists listen with varying degrees of interest and attention.

Constantin Hansen (1804 - 1880) was very ambitious when painting this picture. He let himself be inspired by Renaissance depictions of artists, transforming them to suit the ideals of his own era. Through the doors we see the greatest source of inspiration for the artists of the time: contemporary reality. Constantin Hansen prepared the painting carefully, painting studies of each participant, and he had his fellow artist Albert Küchler (1803-1886) paint a study of himself. From the left the persons depicted are: the artist himself, Bindesbøll, Martinus Rørbye (1803-1848), Wilhelm Marstrand (1810-1873), Küchler, Ditlev Blunck (1798-1853), and Jørgen Sonne (1801-1890). With its serious atmosphere the painting stands out among the pictures of carefree Italian living that Danish audiences saw so many of at the time.

Anthony Serres - Reclining Nude

Anthony Serres - Reclining Nude, a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Anthony Serres (1828 - 1898) was a French painter.

[Oil on canvas, 50 x 75 cm]

Elisabeth Jerichau Baumann - An Egyptian Fellah Woman with her Baby [1872]

Elisabeth Jerichau Baumann - An Egyptian Fellah Woman with her Baby [1872], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Baumann (1819 - 1881) was a rare artist in her own day. Partly because she was a woman, but also because of her unusual openness towards the exotic and the unknown. This painting is an excellent example of Baumann’s keen sense for the erotic and the sensuous.

This painting of an Egyptian farm worker is among the most striking of Jerichau Baumann’s oriental scenes. The nudity beneath the sheer silk fabric, the exotic jewellery, the reddening evening sky, and the dark colours all infuse it with a sensuous quality that must have had a strong impact in the 1870s, a time when the body was still viewed with suspicion. Indeed, Elisabeth Jerichau Baumann occupies a unique position within Danish post-1850 art in more ways than one. Hailing from a Polish-German background, she had a wider horizon than most Danish artists, who would primarily strive to identify and cultivate the uniquely Danish. She had an openness to all things foreign and exotic that was rarely seen in Denmark at the time; her only real match in that regard would be Hans Christian Andersen. The wanderlust of an artist took her to Turkey, Greece, and Egypt (1869-70 and 1874-75), furnishing her with a rich fount of oriental motifs.

Carl Bloch - Samson and the Philistines [1863]

Carl Bloch - Samson and the Philistines [1863], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

With Samson and the Philistines, painted in Rome in 1863, Bloch (1834 - 1890) entered the Danish art scene in earnest. With his virtuoso technique and narrative devices such as the way we as spectators are drawn into the scene, and the sheer concentrated action of the piece he brought Danish art on a par with contemporary European history painting. Art history has reproached Bloch for his pronounced use of theatrical effects.

Samson was followed by several similar pictures, which brought Bloch great recognition, carving him a reputation among his contemporaries as Denmark’s greatest painter. Bloch’s principal work is the series of 23 paintings with scenes from the New Testament that the brewer J.C. Jacobsen (1811-1887) of Carlsberg fame commissioned in 1865 as decorations for King Christian IV’s (1577-1648) prayer seat in Frederiksborg Chapel.

Sir Henry Raeburn - The Archers [c.1789-90]

Sir Henry Raeburn - The Archers [c.1789-90], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

The Archers is one of a small number of outstanding portraits from the early part of Raeburn's career, in which he employed an exceptionally accomplished and subtle fusion of arresting compositions and dramatic treatment of light and shade to create a sense of intimacy between the spectator and the sitters. The portrait is datable to about 1789 or 1790, when the young subjects were in their late teens. Robert and Ronald Ferguson became members of the Royal Company of Archers in 1792 and 1801 respectively and the contemporary revival of archery as a fashionable sport appears to have served as inspiration for the composition. 

The two brothers are shown in a striking and complex arrangement of contrasts. Robert is lit from the left, while Ronald behind him is shown entirely in shadow, gazing out at the viewer while framed in the tautened bow of his brother. The stillness, darkness and broad, confident application of paint combine to create a sense of hushed atmosphere, which is at once formal and verging on the romantic.

[Oil on canvas, 110.5 x 123.5 cm]

Imitator of Jan van Goyen - Sailing Vessels on a River in a Breeze [1650s]

Imitator of Jan van Goyen - Sailing Vessels on a River in a Breeze [1650s], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

This picture shows a group of sailing boats making their way across the choppy waters of a Dutch river. In the distance the shore and the outline of an unidentified town can just be discerned. Ships of this type were used in the Netherlands to transport people and goods around the country. In the 17th century the country had a tight network of boat services between all the major towns and cities. 

In the past this painting was attributed to Jan van Goyen, mostly because of the false signature and date it once bore. It is now considered to have been painted by a follower, imitating the artist's late style.

[Oil on oak, 37.1 x 53.1 cm]

Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg - Russian Ship of the Line Assow and a Frigate at Anchor in the Roads of Elsinore [1828]

Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg - Russian Ship of the Line Assow and a Frigate at Anchor in the Roads of Elsinore [1828], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Eckersberg had studied Russian ships of the line on two occasions before embarking on the painting of the Asow in 1828. Both times, however, his studies were made at Copenhagen, not Elsinore as shown in this picture. Thus, this painting is not a faithful reproduction of a single, specific scene; it is a presentation of what the ship would look like if viewed from a favourable position on the Oresund.

Eckersberg prepared the painting with great care. He borrowed plans of ships of the line from the Danish navy, and he painstakingly calculated the relative positions of the ships on the water. He also studied the light, wind, and other meteorological conditions before commencing work, taking extra care to paint the cloud formations as realistically as possible. After 1821 seascapes had become Eckersberg’s favourite subject. They allowed him to bring together his interest in nature, ships, and meteorology, and over the next three decades he had the opportunity to depict almost every conceivable type of ship in every marine situation imaginable.