Johan Barthold Jongkind - The Boulevard de Port-Royal, Paris [1877]

Johan Barthold Jongkind - The Boulevard de Port-Royal, Paris [1877], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Jongkind produced a number of views of this newly constructed boulevard near his studio in Paris, and a related watercolour of 1874 includes detailed notes about the subject. A late work, this is an important example of the roughly handled paint surface and use of colour that was admired by the younger generation of Impressionists.

[National Gallery, London - Oil on canvas, 42.2 x 66.5 cm]

Camille Corot - The House and Factory of Monsieur Henry [1833]

Camille Corot - The House and Factory of Monsieur Henry [1833], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Monsieur Henry, a cloth manufacturer and a friend of the artist’s father, commissioned this picture of his house and factory in Soissons, France. Corot also painted a view from the back of the house overlooking the spires of Soissons Cathedral; this painting is now in Otterlo, Holland. Regarding Corot as an amateur, Henry neglected to pay him for works that are now considered among the finest of the artist’s early career.

[Philadelphia Museum of Art - Oil on canvas, 81.4 x 100.3 cm]

Léon-Augustin Lhermitte - Apple Market, Landerneau, Brittany [c.1878]

Léon-Augustin Lhermitte - Apple Market, Landerneau, Brittany [c.1878], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Philadelphia Museum of Art - Oil on canvas, 85.7 x 120 cm]

Léon-Augustin Lhermitte - The Gleaners [1887]

Léon-Augustin Lhermitte - The Gleaners [1887], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Léon-Augustin Lhermitte (Mont-Saint-Pere, 1844 - 1925) was a French realist painter and etcher whose primary subject matter was of rural scenes depicting the peasant worker.

[Philadelphia Museum of Art - Oil on canvas, 74.9 x 95.9 cm]

Edgar Degas - Interior [c.1868]

Edgar Degas - Interior [c.1868], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

After years of ambitious if equivocal attempts at monumental paintings on grand historical themes, by the late 1860s Edgar Degas increasingly turned to depictions of modern subjects. The dramatic play of artificial light and evening shadow in this painting, and the palpable sense of anxiety it transmits, are unique in Degas's scenes of private life. 

Although it is not without discrepancies in detail, the most convincing identification of the subject, proposed by the Degas scholar Theodore Reff, is that it illustrates a scene from Emile Zola's novel Thérèse Raquin (1867). Reunited on their wedding night, one year after they have killed Thérèse's husband, the lovers are overwhelmed by the enormity of their crime and retreat from one another into bitter isolation. 

Degas himself referred to it as "my genre picture," and it may have been intended for British collectors who appreciated the psychological tension in narratives painted by artists such as Sir John Everett Millais and Degas's friend James Tissot. The alternate title, The Rape, by which the picture also has long been known, does not seem to derive from Degas himself. 

[Philadelphia Museum of Art - Oil on canvas, 81.3 x 114.3 cm]

Jean-François Raffaëlli - Artist Painting [c.1879]

Jean-François Raffaëlli - Artist Painting [c.1879], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

With his back to the viewer, a coarse-looking artist puts the finishing touches to an already framed painting. This picture-within-the-picture shows a vagabond or ragpicker sitting beside his bundle in a suburban field with factories in the background. While the image of the painter may be a self-portrait, Raffaëlli probably also identified with the ragpicker. Like this figure, he lived in an industrial suburb of Paris and struggled to earn a living.

[Philadelphia Museum of Art - Oil on panel, 52.1 x 53 cm]

Jan Steen - Rhetoricians at a Window [c.1661-66]

Jan Steen - Rhetoricians at a Window [c.1661-66], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Philadelphia Museum of Art - Oil on canvas, 75.9 x 58.6 cm]

Jan Steen - As the Old Ones Sing, So the Young Ones Pipe [c.1670-75]

Jan Steen - As the Old Ones Sing, So the Young Ones Pipe [c.1670-75], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Philadelphia Museum of Art - Oil on canvas, 95.6 x 106.7 cm]

Johannes Vermeer - Woman in Blue Reading a Letter [1663-64]

Johannes Vermeer - Woman in Blue Reading a Letter [1663-64], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

During the meticulous restoration of Woman in Blue Reading a Letter (1663-64), one of the Rijksmuseum’s four Vermeer masterpieces, a number of surprising details were uncovered. Vermeer’s characteristically intense use of blue, for example, can now be viewed in all of its magnificent nuances for the first time in centuries. In addition, several pearls that were added in 1928 were removed, and other details that had disappeared were restored.

This masterpiece has undergone all kinds of treatments over the centuries that left their mark on the painting. Under the supervision of an international committee of experts, Rijksmuseum restorer Ige Verslype has restored the painting to its original condition wherever possible. Woman in Blue Reading a Letter will be on display in a special exhibition in the Rijksmuseum.

Ige Verslype: “The greatest surprise was when we discovered how Vermeer produced such an intense blue colour. We now know that he used a copper-green undercoat to give the colour extra depth. Once the yellowed glaze had been removed, this magnificent blue came back into view in all of its glorious nuances.”

[Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam - Oil on canvas, 46.5 x 38 cm]

Johannes Vermeer - Woman in Blue Reading a Letter [1663-64]

Johannes Vermeer - Woman in Blue Reading a Letter [1663-64], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

The same painting before restoration had taken place.

[Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam - Oil on canvas, 46.5 x 38 cm]

Mary Cassatt - In the Loge [c.1879]

Mary Cassatt - In the Loge [c.1879], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

In this pastel drawing Cassatt enlivened the broad blended passages with brilliant touches of fresh pastel and bold streaks of metallic paint, frequently using moisture to create a multilayered surface. Through the years Cassatt produced pastels on a variety of supports, including paper, paper adhered to canvas, and canvas alone. For this work she used a canvas coated with a ground embedded with pumice or coarse fibres to create a rough surface that would hold the powdery pastels more securely.

[Philadelphia Museum of Art - Pastel and metallic paint on canvas prepared with a pastel ground, 65.1 x 81.3 cm]

Mary Cassatt - Woman with a Pearl Necklace in a Loge [1879]

Mary Cassatt - Woman with a Pearl Necklace in a Loge [1879], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Cassatt created a series of theatre scenes in the late 1870s, displaying an interest in city nightlife shared by many of the Impressionists. This work, showing a woman (often said to be her sister Lydia) seated in front of a mirror with the balconies of the Paris Opéra House reflected behind her, demonstrates the influence of Cassatt's friend Edgar Degas, particularly in the attention paid to the effects of artificial lighting on flesh tones. This painting was shown in Paris at the fourth Impressionist exhibition in 1879, where it was singled out for much praise.

[Philadelphia Museum of Art - Oil on canvas, 81.3 x 59.7 cm]

Claude Monet - Lavacourt Under Snow [c.1878-81]

Claude Monet - Lavacourt Under Snow [c.1878-81], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Lavacourt is a hamlet on the other side of the Seine from Vétheuil, where Monet had settled in 1878. Although dated 1881, this work was probably painted slightly earlier. The artist often signed his works long after completion, adding dates which were sometimes inaccurate.

[National Gallery, London - Oil on canvas, 59.7 x 80.6 cm]

Claude Monet - Green Park, London [1870 or 1871]

Claude Monet - Green Park, London [1870 or 1871], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

In the autumn of 1870, in the midst of the Franco-Prussian War, Monet and his wife left France for exile in London, where they remained until June 1871. There the artist painted this panorama of a park in the heart of the city. In later years Monet would return to London, painting numerous views of city sights, including the Houses of Parliament.

[Philadelphia Museum of Art - Oil on canvas, 34.3 x 72.5 cm]

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes - War [1867]

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes - War [1867], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

This is one of two companion paintings that are reduced versions of Puvis' large murals shown first in 1861. The historical vagueness of the subjects is intentional: War takes place in some general Northern Druidic/Gallic time, while the other painting, Peace, seems to move closer to the Mediterranean and a golden age of eternal youth. Through his tremendously subtle and understated use of colour and ability to retain a graceful unity within a complex design, Puvis lifted decorative painting to a new level.

[Philadelphia Museum of Art - Oil on canvas, 109.5 x 149.2 cm]

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes - Peace [1867]

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes - Peace [1867], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

This painting depicts the societal advantages of peace played out in an idyllic landscape, where antique figures rest or engage in pleasant tasks, milking goats or collecting fruit. The image of bounty is drawn from descriptions in Virgil’s fourth Eclogue of a golden age, a harmonious future when “unbidden, the goats will bring home their udders swollen with milk.” This is a reduced version of a much larger picture from Puvis’ first public mural project, which comprised four allegories of human states, including War, Work, and Repose, acquired by the French government to decorate the Musée de Napoléon in Amiens, France.

[Philadelphia Museum of Art - Oil on canvas, 108.9 x 148.6 cm]

Henry Oliver Walker - A Morning Vision [1895]

Henry Oliver Walker - A Morning Vision [1895], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Henry Oliver Walker (Boston, May 14, 1843 – Belmont, Massachusetts, January 14, 1929) was an American painter of figures and portraits best known for his mural decorations. His works include a series of paintings honouring various poets for the Library of Congress and decorations for public buildings.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 71.4 x 76.5 cm]

Pierre-Auguste Renoir - The Great Bathers [1884-87]

Pierre-Auguste Renoir - The Great Bathers [1884-87], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Although this painting depicts a fleeting moment when one bather playfully threatens to splash a companion, it has a timeless, monumental quality. The sculptural rendering of the figures against a shimmering landscape and the careful application of dry paint reflect the tradition of seventeenth and eighteenth century French painting. Renoir, in an attempt to reconcile this tradition with modern painting, laboured over this work for three years, making numerous preparatory drawings for individual figures and at least two full-scale, multifigure drawings. Faced with criticism of his new style after completing The Large Bathers, an exhausted Renoir never again devoted such painstaking effort to a single work.

[Philadelphia Museum of Art - Oil on canvas, 117.8 x 170.8 cm]

Willem de Zwart - Street in Montmartre, Paris, in Winter

Willem de Zwart - Street in Montmartre, Paris, in Winter, a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Willem de Zwart (The Hague, May 16, 1862 - The Hague, December 11, 1931) was a Dutch painter, engraver, and watercolourist. Willem de Zwart lived and worked until 1894 in The Hague and from 1900 to 1905 in Amsterdam. His work has a wide range of subjects: landscapes, cityscapes, portraits and still life, rendered in a naturalistic or impressionist style. His work shows affinity with the people and city-oriented Amsterdam Impressionism. His choice of subjects belonged to the Hague School, and in his style and his exuberant use of colour to the school of Amsterdam Impressionism. De Zwart applied the paint thickly, sometimes straight from the tube, with bright colours, exuberant reds, yellows and blues, giving his paintings special vibrancy.

[Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam - Oil on canvas, 50.5 x 65.5 cm]

Johannes Lingelbach - The Camp [1650-74]

Johannes Lingelbach - The Camp [1650-74], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Johannes Lingelbach (Frankfurt, 1622 - Amsterdam, 1674) was a Dutch Golden Age painter. His skill in painting genre figures is no less accomplished in his depictions of architectural and natural objects. He was often invited to paint the figures and animals within other artists landscape pieces, such as the Dutch master landscape painter Meindert Hobbema.

[Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam - Oil on panel, 44 x 65 cm]

Hendrick Goltzius - Lot and His Daughters [1616]

Hendrick Goltzius - Lot and His Daughters [1616], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

A seasoned but lusty old man is seated between two naked young women. In the background a city is burning. The man is Lot, seduced by his daughters following the destruction of the city of Sodom. Hendrik Goltzius painted the work in 1616. He used the Bible story to show off his skill as a painter of nudes. The two women have wonderfully soft bodies with full, gentle curves. For an old man, Lot is still remarkably muscular. To accentuate the bodies the artist draped cloth over them in contrasting colours: blue, yellow and red. The poses of Lot and his daughters are perhaps rather artificial, but that was the style of art in the period, Mannerism.

[Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam - Oil on canvas, 140 x 204 cm]

Hendrick Goltzius - Vertumnus and Pomona [1613]

Hendrick Goltzius - Vertumnus and Pomona [1613], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Vertumnus and Pomona are divine characters in ancient Roman religion and mythology. Vertumnus was the god of seasons, plants including fruit trees and gardens. He was capable of changing his form at his will. Once, Vertumnus played a trick on Pomona, the goddess of fruitful abundance and orchards, by transforming himself into an old woman and gaining entry to her orchard. The old woman (Vertumnus) narrated to Pomona the tale of Iphis and Anaxarete, and warned her of the consequences of rejecting a sincere suitor, and seduced her. Eventually, after being seduced by Vertumnus, Pomona who had earlier rejected the love of the woodland gods Silvanus and Picus, married Vertumnus. 

[Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam - Oil on canvas, 90 x 149.5 cm]

Thomas Couture - The Thorny Path [1873]

Thomas Couture - The Thorny Path [1873], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

The Thorny Path is Couture's satire of decadent French society. A courtesan drives a carriage pulled not by animals but by four male captives who represent different ages and states of society. The naked old man leading the procession is flabby from indulgence; the troubadour following him, a symbol of young love, parodies the medieval ballads popular in nineteenth century France. The old soldier bends his head in self-reproach, and the young student writes as he walks, symbolising the educated nobility's ignorance of the realities of daily life. The thistles and thorny plants along the road suggest the painfulness of their journey. The decrepit figure seated at the rear of the carriage with a bottle of wine in her basket foreshadows the courtesan's future. Finally, Couture signed his initials on the stone figure at centre, which seems to be laughing at the entourage.

[Philadelphia Museum of Art - Oil on canvas, 130.8 x 190.5 cm]

Joseph Mallord William Turner - The Sun Rising Through Vapour [before1807]

Joseph Mallord William Turner - The Sun Rising Through Vapour [before 1807], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

This work was probably influenced by earlier Dutch painting. No particular locality seems intended. Almost certainly the picture was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1807 with the title as given here. 

Turner was born near Covent Garden in London and entered the Royal Academy Schools in 1789. His earliest works form part of the 18th-century topographical tradition. He was soon inspired by 17th-century Dutch artists such as Willem van der Velde, and by the Italianate landscapes of Claude and Richard Wilson.

[National Gallery, London - Oil on canvas, 134 x 179.5 cm]

Gustave Courbet - The Young Bather [1866]

Gustave Courbet - The Young Bather [1866], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

In 1853, Courbet created a scandal when he exhibited Bathers (Musée Fabre, Montpellier), one of his earliest paintings of nudes in a landscape. The realism of his figures shocked his contemporaries, who were accustomed to the idealised nudes of academic art. Here, the highly finished figure contrasts with the more loosely painted landscape background, which was possibly executed with a palette knife rather than a brush. This painting and five others by Courbet once belonged to the nineteenth-century Turkish collector Khalil Bey.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 130.2 x 97.2 cm]

Unknown French Artist - Study of a Nude Man [c.1816]

Unknown French Artist - Study of a Nude Man [c.1816], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

A study of a nude model is often called an academy, because such paintings and drawings have been standard exercises in art schools, or academies, since the sixteenth century. This work depicts a particular model who can be seen in this pose in at least two other paintings; all three were thought at one time or another to be painted by Gericault. Only the canvas now in the Musée Bonnat, Bayonne, is widely accepted as being by him. 

The author of this work, like Gericault, was undoubtedly a pupil of Pierre-Narcisse Guérin (1774–1833), in whose studio this work was probably painted. However, it has proven impossible to identify which of Guérin's students painted it or the similar picture now in a private collection.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 80.6 x 64.1 cm]

Georges Seurat - Circus Sideshow [1887-88]

Georges Seurat - Circus Sideshow [1887-88], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Circus Sideshow (or Parade de Cirque) is one of six major figure paintings that Seurat produced during his short career. More compact than his other mural-size compositions, and more mysterious in its allure, Seurat's first nocturnal painting debuted at the 1888 Salon des Indépendants in Paris. On a balustraded stage, under the misty glow of nine twinkling gaslights, a ring master (at right) and musicians (at left) play to a crowd of potential ticket buyers, whose assorted hats add a wry and rhythmic note to the foreground.

Seurat made on-site sketches in the spring of 1887, when Fernand Corvi's travelling circus was set up in a working-class district of Paris, near the place de la Nation; he then developed the composition through several preparatory studies. Circus Sideshow represents the first important painting Seurat devoted to a scene of popular entertainment. 

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 99.7 x 149.9 cm]

Camille Pissarro - L’Île Lacroix, Rouen (The Effect of Fog) [1888]

Camille Pissarro - L’Île Lacroix, Rouen (The Effect of Fog) [1888], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Pissarro created the present painting from an earlier composition in his studio rather than in front of the motif, which was his usual practice. He had visited Rouen in 1883 and made several drawings and etchings of the Seine that he consulted five years later when painting this foggy view of factories and barges on the river. An industrial landscape dominated by a smoke-belching chimney, the scene is rendered with great beauty in a subtle range of colours. The broad, flat frame with its laurel-leaf border was designed by Pissarro for this picture, though it may originally have been painted white.

[Philadelphia Museum of Art, oil on canvas, 46.7 x 55.9 cm]

Ludolf Bakhuysen - Ships in Distress of a Rocky Coast [1667]

Ludolf Bakhuysen - Ships in Distress of a Rocky Coast [1667], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

The three ships in this large painting are the wide-bellied, seagoing vessels that transported much of Holland’s mercantile cargo. They display the Dutch flag of orange, white, and blue. These symbols of national optimism, however, are in peril of crashing against rocks during a storm. Each ship has a broken mast and, in the lower right foreground, floating wreckage reveals that one vessel has already sunk. Amid the dark grey and steely blue clouds and water, the sun’s golden rays give hope that calmer weather will soon return. The subject may be considered a vanitas, a reminder of the fleeting nature of earthly existence.

Although realistic in appearance, the painting combines imaginary elements that Backhuysen (Dutch, 1631 - 1708) often used in his theatrical compositions. Complex shapes and sharp contrasts of light and shadow heighten the drama as do the massive cliffs and frothy spray. Backhuysen, German-born, moved to Amsterdam in 1649 to study marine painting. During the last quarter of the seventeenth century he was Holland’s leading seascape artist, with royal and noble patrons throughout Europe.

[National Gallery of Art, Washington - Oil on canvas, 114.3 x 167.3 cm]

Ludolf Bakhuysen - Ships in Distress in a Heavy Storm [c.1690]

Ludolf Bakhuysen - Ships in Distress in a Heavy Storm [c.1690], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

This painting was not intended as a depiction of a historical event. Its subject is the power of natural forces. The waves are swept up by the wind, endangering the ships as they roll about on the billowing sea. Perhaps these vessels will never reach port. The dramatic contrast of dark and light and the diagonal lines of the listing ships produce a compelling composition on the large canvas. It was said of Ludolf Bakhuysen that he often sailed out when a storm was brewing, to observe how the weather affected the sea and the sky. 

[Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam - Oil on canvas, 150 x 277 cm]

Jan Steen - Beware of Luxury [1663]

Jan Steen - Beware of Luxury [1663], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Jan Steen arranges the various actors as though on a theatre stage. The gentle depth of the composition is based on a triangle, with the magnificently dressed young woman at its top point. Her clothing and seductive look identify her as a loose-living girl. She, however, is not the focus of the scene; that is provided by the lady of the house, who has fallen asleep at the table on the left. Her absence has resulted in the rest of the story: the dog is finishing the meat pie that was served on the table, one of the children is filching something from the cabinet on the wall, the little girl’s brother is trying out a pipe, and the youngest child, sitting in his highchair, is playing carelessly with a string of pearls. His attention diverted to the side, a young man is trying to play a violin. 

Young people who continued to live at home were considered suspect in the popular culture of the Netherlands at the time. The prostitute in the foreground has already been mentioned: in a provocative gesture she holds a filled glass between the legs of the man of the house, while he dismisses with a grin the admonishment of the nun standing on the right. The duck on the shoulder of the man next to her identifies him as a Quaker, who urges the reading of pious texts. Hanging above the heads of these sinners are the symbols of the penalty to be expected for unbridled, lustful behaviour: a sword and a crutch in a basket suspended from the ceiling.

[Kunsthistorishes Museum, Vienna - Oil on canvas, 145.5 x 105 cm]

Jan Vermeer - The Art of Painting [1666-68]

Jan Vermeer - The Art of Painting [1666-68], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

The drawn-back curtain opens a view of a room that is bathed in light from a window on the left (not visible in the picture). On the back wall is a detailed map of the Netherlands. In the foreground a chair and the table behind it, covered with various articles, direct the viewer’s gaze to the middle distance. His back towards the viewer, the painter sits at his easel; he has begun work on a half-length portrait of the girl standing at the window. Thus painting occupies the most prominent place among the arts. The articles on the table represent sculpture (plaster cast), art printing (book) and tapestry weaving (fabrics). But what is the meaning of the model the artist is painting? The female figure is holding a trumpet and a book in her hands and is wearing a laurel wreath in her hair. Thus she is Clio, the Muse of history. 

[Kunsthistorishes Museum, Vienna - Oil on canvas, 100 x 120 cm]

Gerard van Honthorst - Flute Playing Shepherd and Four Nymphs [1632]

Gerard van Honthorst - Flute Playing Shepherd and Four Nymphs [1632], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam - Oil on canvas, 92 x 174.5 cm]

Antonio da Vendri - The Giusti Family of Verona [c.1520]

Antonio da Vendri - The Giusti Family of Verona [c.1520], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

This work was originally the bottom part of an altarpiece, which was probably in the Church of Saint Maria in Stelle, Verona. The upper part apparently showed the Virgin and Child with saints, while another fragment in Verona shows Saints Sebastian and Roch, saints frequently invoked in times of plague. This group of six men and nine women has traditionally been identified as the Giusti family of Verona, although none of the family can be identified by comparison with other portraits. Antonio da Vendri worked in Verona between 1517-45; his name appears in documents not only as a painter, but also as a baker and tailor. One of his brothers was a painter too. 

[National Gallery, London - Oil on canvas, 55 x 153 cm]

Jean-Léon Gérôme - Pygmalion and Galatea [c.1890]

Jean-Léon Gérôme - Pygmalion and Galatea [c.1890], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Late in his career, Gérôme turned to the medium of sculpture. Between 1890 and 1893, he executed both sculpted and painted variations on the theme of Pygmalion and Galatea, as the tale is recounted in Ovid's Metamorphoses. All of those works depict the moment when the sculpture of Galatea was brought to life by the goddess Venus, in fulfillment of Pygmalion's wish for a wife as beautiful as the sculpture he created. 

In 1890, Gérôme commented that he had "just begun" a painting of Pygmalion and Galatea. This is one of three known versions in oil of the subject, all likely based on the plaster model of a life-size marble sculpture (Hearst Castle, San Simeon, California). In each painting, the sculpture appears at a different angle, as though it was being viewed in the round.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art - Oil on canvas, 88.9 x 68.6 cm]

Jean-Léon Gérôme - Prayer in the Mosque [1871]

Jean-Léon Gérôme - Prayer in the Mosque [1871], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Orientalist images represent more than two-thirds of Gérôme's painted oeuvre and are based on his travels in the Near East, especially North Africa. Paul-Marie Lenoir, Gérôme's student and one of his travelling companions, recorded a description of their 1868 visit to the Egyptian mosque of 'Amr in Cairo, founded in A.D. 640, whose interior Gérôme depicted in this painting. The rows of worshipers, ranging from the dignitary and his attendants to the loincloth-clad Muslim holy man, face Mecca during one of the five daily prayers. It is unlikely, however, that Gérôme witnessed such a scene at this particular mosque, which, by 1868, had fallen into disuse. Rather, the image is probably a composite of sketches as well as photographs of various sites.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art - Oil on canvas, 88.9 x 74.9 cm]

Thomas Eakins - A May Morning in the Park (The Fairman RogersFour-in-Hand) [1879-80]

Thomas Eakins - A May Morning in the Park (The Fairman Rogers Four-in-Hand) [1879-80], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

This painting was commissioned in 1879 by Fairman Rogers, a civil engineer and coaching enthusiast, who was also Eakins's friend and his most important supporter on the board of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. The painting shows Rogers' coach, a type known as a four-in-hand, in Philadelphia's Fairmount Park. Fairman Rogers drives the coach with family members and friends seated beside him.

[Philadelphia Museum of Art - Oil on canvas, 60.3 x 91.4 cm]

Winslow Homer - Snap the Whip [1872]

Winslow Homer - Snap the Whip [1872], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Crack the Whip is a simple outdoor children's game that involves physical co-ordination, and is usually played in small groups, either on grass or ice. One player, chosen as the "head" of the whip, runs (or skates) around in random directions, with subsequent players holding on to the hand of the previous player. The entire "tail" of the whip moves in those directions, but with much more force toward the end of the tail. The longer the tail, the more the forces act on the last player, and the tighter they have to hold on.

As the game progresses, and more players fall off, some of those who were previously located near the end of the tail and have fallen off can "move up" and be in a more secure position by grabbing onto the tail as it is moving, provided they can get back on before some of the others do. There is no objective to this game other than the enjoyment of the experience.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art - Oil on canvas, 30.5 x 50.8 cm]

Gerard van Honthorst - A Cheerful Violin Player [1623]

Gerard van Honthorst - A Cheerful Violin Player [1623], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam - Oil on canvas, 107.2 x 88.3 cm]

Willem Duyster - Soldiers Beside a Fireplace [c.1628-32]

Willem Duyster - Soldiers Beside a Fireplace [c.1628-32], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Philadelphia Museum of Art - Oil on panel, 41.9 x 47 cm]

Auguste Renoir - Reclining Nude [1883]

Auguste Renoir - Reclining Nude [1883], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Nudes and the grand tradition of classical art preoccupied Renoir in the 1880s. In this painting, he paid homage to Ingres's Grande Odalisque (Musée du Louvre, Paris), although he transformed Ingres's cool courtesan into a healthy, pink-cheeked girl, and the harem into an Impressionist landscape reminiscent of the Channel coast.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art - Oil on canvas, 65.1 x 81.3 cm]

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes - The Prodigal Son [c.1879]

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes - The Prodigal Son [c.1879], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[National Gallery of Art, Washington - Oil on linen, 106.5 x 146.7 cm]

Louis Gallait - Peace [1872]

Louis Gallait - Peace [1872], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

When this pair of allegorical paintings was completed in 1872, a Belgian critic wrote: “M. Gallait just finished two paintings forming a pendant pair that rank among the best things he has ever done. They are allegories of peace and war, but allegories conceived in a new order of ideas, substituting living reality for imaginary abstractions. . . . The critic concluded with this ringing endorsement: Peace and War are about to leave for London. Let's hope that after appearing in an academic exhibition, where they are expected, these two compositions will return to Belgium. It is not enough for them to be seen by just a privileged few; they must be seen by everyone.” 

An exhaustive catalogue on the artist published in 1987 to accompany an exhibition organised by the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Tournai described these paintings as "whereabouts unknown." Evidently, the pendant pair never returned from London, as the Belgian critic had hoped, but instead made their way to join William Walters' growing collection of contemporary art, where they have remained ever since.

[Walters Art Museum - Oil on canvas, 118 x 82.3 cm]

Louis Gallait - War [1872]

Louis Gallait - War [1872], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Walters Art Museum - Oil on canvas, 120 x 83 cm]

William Stanley Haseltine - Santa Maria della Salute, Sunset [1870-85]

William Stanley Haseltine - Santa Maria della Salute, Sunset [1870-85], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

William Stanley Haseltine (Philadelphia, June 11, 1835 - Rome, February 3, 1900) was an American painter. He first exhibited his paintings in 1855 at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, after which he sailed to Europe, first joining a colony of American painters who were studying in Dusseldorf, then travelling up the Rhine into Switzerland and Italy. In late 1857 he settled in Rome, and in the following months made numerous excursions to draw the landscape around Rome and on Capri.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art - Oil on canvas, 58.4 x 91.4 cm]

Adolphe-Félix Cais - The Farm at Saint Simon, Honfleur [1876]

Adolphe-Félix Cais - The Farm at Saint Simon, Honfleur [1876], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Adolphe-Félix Cais (October 17, 1810 - October 3, 1880) was a French painter. Having divided his time between Paris and Honfleur since 1871, he finally decided to settle down, in 1873, in Honfleur, a port in Normandy which was home to many painters, and has been called "the cradle of impressionism.” At the invitation of Monet, he participated in the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874, and 1876 until 1881. 

[Philadelphia Museum of Art - Oil on canvas, 36 x 62.5 cm]

Claude Monet - Houses of Parliament (Effect of Fog) [1903-04]

Claude Monet - Houses of Parliament (Effect of Fog) [1903-04], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

In the autumn of 1899 and the early months of 1900 and of 1901, Monet executed a series of views of the Thames River in London. From his room at the Savoy Hotel, he painted Waterloo Bridge to the east, and Charing Cross Bridge to the west; beginning in February 1900, he set up his easel on a terrace at Saint Thomas's Hospital across the river, reserving time in the late afternoon to depict the Houses of Parliament.

While in London, Monet produced nearly a hundred canvases, reportedly moving from one to another as the light changed. He continued to work on these paintings in his studio at Giverny. In May 1904, thirty-seven were exhibited at the Galerie Durand-Ruel in Paris, including this view of the Houses of Parliament cloaked in dense fog.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art - Oil on canvas, 81.3 x 92.4 cm]

Claude Monet - Haystacks (Effect of Snow and Sun) [1891]

Claude Monet - Haystacks (Effect of Snow and Sun) [1891], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Between summer 1890 and winter 1891 Monet executed about thirty paintings of the haystacks in a field near his house at Giverny. In the midst of this effort, he wrote to the critic Gustave Geoffroy: "I am working very hard, struggling with a series of different effects (haystacks), but at this season the sun sets so fast I cannot follow it. . . . The more I continue, the more I see that a great deal of work is necessary in order to succeed in rendering what I seek." Although Monet had painted multiple versions of a single subject earlier, Haystacks was the first group that he exhibited as a series; in 1891, fifteen were shown at the Galerie Durand-Ruel in Paris.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art - Oil on canvas, 65.4 x 92.1 cm]

Jacob Duck - Interior with Soldiers and Women [c.1650]

Jacob Duck - Interior with Soldiers and Women [c.1650], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Framed by an arched doorway, two soldiers sit smoking, drinking, and chatting with a young woman who sits casually on tiled steps. Behind the woman, a warm light enters to permeate the setting and the objects and figures within. To the right, another woman descends a dark staircase and prepares to enter the room. In the foreground a jumble of objects, rifles, armour, a drum, a pipe, an overturned pail, and yellow drapery, form a more complicated still life grouping. On the back wall, a wooden rack holds pewter plates, crockery, and spoons. This genre scene, an unidealised view of everyday life illustrates Jacob Duck's (c.1600 - 1667) shrewd observation of costumes, setting, and objects, as well as his ability to render the surfaces of metal, stone, cloth, and wood.

[Paul Getty Museum - Oil on panel, 16.5 x 24 inches]

Eastman Johnson - The Hatch Family [1870-71]

Eastman Johnson - The Hatch Family [1870-71], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Alfrederick Smith Hatch (1829–1904) was a prominent Wall Street broker in the firm of Fisk and Hatch and president of the New York Stock Exchange from 1883 to 1884. Like many of his business associates, he was an enthusiastic collector of art. One of the finest paintings in his collection was this commissioned group portrait showing three generations of his family. It depicts them in the library of their New York residence at 49 Park Avenue, on the northeast corner of 39th Street. Hatch is seated to the right at his desk, and his wife, the former Theodosia Ruggles (1829–1908), leans on the mantel. Other members of the family, including Theodosia's mother, Hatch's father, and their children are also present.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art - Oil on canvas, 121.9 x 186.4 cm]