Abraham Bloemaert - Venus and Adonis [1632]

Abraham Bloemaert - Venus and Adonis [1632], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Bloemaert founded the so-called Utrecht School, a group of young artists from Utretcht who went to Rome in the early part of the 17th century and were inspired by artists such as Caravaggio. This painting is regarded as one of Bloemaert’s masterpieces. The harmony, the intensity of the colours, and the lustre of the classical figures against the contrasting landscape behind it testifies to the quality and longevity that Morell added to the collections with his acquisitions.

The tale of Venus and Adonis is related in the ancient poet Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Here the goddess Venus tries in vain to persuade her mortal lover Adonis to refrain from taking part in the dangerous hunt, but in the background we see Adonis having been slain during the hunt.

[National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen]

Anton Mauve - The Workshop of the Haarlem Painter Pieter Frederik vanOs, the Teacher of Mauve [c.1855-56]

Anton Mauve - The Workshop of the Haarlem Painter Pieter Frederik van Os, the Teacher of Mauve [c.1855-56], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam - Oil on canvas, 49 x 61 cm]

Camille Corot - Diana and Actaeon (Diana Surprised in Her Bath) [1836]

Camille Corot - Diana and Actaeon (Diana Surprised in Her Bath) [1836], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Diana and Actaeon is one of Corot's earliest treatments of a subject from ancient mythology. In representing a classical subject in an Arcadian landscape, Corot was responding to the example of Poussin, the greatest French master of the seventeenth century. The section of landscape at the upper left, executed in the loose brushwork and silvery palette of Corot's late style, was repainted by the artist in 1874, one year before his death, at the request of the painting's new owner.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 156.5 x 112.7 cm]

Biagio d’Antonio - Scenes from the Story of the Argonauts

Biagio d’Antonio - Scenes from the Story of the Argonauts , a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

In this panel and its companion the story of Jason and the Argonauts unfolds in a continuous narrative. The episodes here include the meeting of King Aëetes and his daughters Medea and Chalciope with Jason and his companions; Jason plowing the grove of Ares, where the Golden Fleece is guarded; Orpheus lulling the dragon to sleep so that Jason may steal the fleece; and, probably, the King sending his sons off to capture the fleeing Jason and Medea. The engaged decorative mouldings surrounding the painted panel are original. The paintings were probably installed as the backrests of two benches, or framed in the wainscoting of a room.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Tempera on wood, gilt ornaments, 61.3 x 153.4 cm]

John Constable - Salisbury Cathedral from the Bishop’s Grounds [c.1825]

John Constable - Salisbury Cathedral from the Bishop’s Grounds [c.1825], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

In 1822, John Fisher, bishop of Salisbury, commissioned John Constable to paint the version of this composition now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Fisher and his wife are visible at lower left in all versions of the composition. In July 1824, he asked Constable to revise it, whereupon the present canvas was begun. Infrared reflectography reveals that it started with an outline traced from the first version, and that the artist then improvised directly on the canvas, painting in the sky and opening up the foliage arching over the south transept to give the spire a more dominant role in the composition. In Constable's estate sale, this work was described as "nearly finished." It is indeed a study for the final version, completed in 1826 (Frick Collection, New York).

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 87.9 x 111.8 cm]

Cornelis van Haarlem - Monk with a Beguine [1591]

Cornelis van Haarlem - Monk with a Beguine [1591], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

A monk squeezes a beguine’s (a member of several lay sisterhoods founded in the Netherlands in the 13th century) breast. The explanation most often given of this picture is that it is a 16th-century satire on the dissolute lives of those living in cloisters: monks and nuns were frequently accused of drunkenness, gluttony, avarice and licentious behaviour. The wine and the fruit would therefore allude to an immoral life. In old museum catalogues, however, the subject of this painting is described as 'the miracle of Haarlem.’ 

According to the legend, a Haarlem nun was accused of having concealed a pregnancy and birth. lt was believed that her motherhood could be detected by squeezing her breast: if milk was expressed, the accusation was true. The painting depicts the moment when a monk 'experienced in the medical sciences' squeezes the nun's breast. This is when the miracle occurred: it was not milk, but wine that flowed from her breast. This proved the nun's piety and innocence. In this case the wine and fruit symbolise a virginal life. Which explanation is the correct one remains the question.

[Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem - Oil on canvas, 116 x 103 cm]

Mihály de Munkácsy - The Music Room [1878]

Mihály de Munkácsy - The Music Room [1878], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

In 1874, two years after he settled in Paris, Munkácsy (Hungarian, 1844 - 1900) married the titled widow of a French general. The room depicted in this painting was in their richly decorated apartment on the Avenue de Villiers. Here musical gatherings were held, and occasionally fellow Hungarian Franz Liszt performed. Munkácsy's Parisian residence, a meeting place for fashionable society, was the setting for a large number of pictures painted between 1878, the date of this work, and 1887.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on wood, 88.9 x 116.8 cm]

Style of Rembrandt - An Old Woman Cutting Her Nails [1655-60]

Style of Rembrandt - An Old Woman Cutting Her Nails [1655-60], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Once well known as a Rembrandt, this large canvas has been attributed recently to the master's pupil, Nicolaes Maes (1643–1693), and to Abraham van Dijck (c.1635?–1680?). The two artists were closely associated in Dordrecht, the southern Dutch city from which several Rembrandt followers came. Whatever its authorship, the painting must date from about 1655–60. The sewing materials and the act of clipping nails probably suggest domestic virtues of a kind often associated with widowhood. The monumental treatment is unexpected and surely inspired by Rembrandt.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 126.1 x 101.9 cm]

Rodolphe-Theophile Bosshard - Deux Nus au Bord du Lac [1922]

Rodolphe-Theophile Bosshard - Deux Nus au Bord du Lac [1922], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Rodolphe-Theophile Bosshard (Morges, June 7, 1889 - Chardonne, September 17, 1960) was a Swiss painter. He specialised in female nudes and was active in Paris between the two world wars.

[Sold at Bukowski’s on October 25, 2011 for Euro 30,150.00 - Oil on canvas, 50 x 104 cm]

Maurice Denis - Bathers at Perros-Guirec [c.1912]

Maurice Denis - Bathers at Perros-Guirec [c.1912], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Beaches were a major theme in the work of Maurice Denis (Granville, 1870 - Paris, 1943). His familiarity with them remembered from his youth and the shores of Brittany. The artist combines the spectacle of nature with the evocation of femininity.

[Petit Palais, City of Paris Fine Art Museum - Oil on canvas, 98 x 122 cm]

Thomas Eakins - The Chess Players [1876]

Thomas Eakins - The Chess Players [1876], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 29.8 x 42.6 cm]

Thomas Eakins - The Champion Single Sculls (Max Schmitt in a SingleScull) [1871]

Thomas Eakins - The Champion Single Sculls (Max Schmitt in a Single Scull) [1871], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Returning to Philadelphia from Europe in 1870, Eakins began a series of representations of the sport of sculling, a subject with which he is uniquely identified. This, the first major work in the series, probably commemorates the victory of Max Schmitt (1843–1900), an attorney and skilled amateur rower, in an important race held on the Schuylkill River in October 1870. Also an avid rower, Eakins depicted himself pulling the oars of a scull in the middle distance. Eakins constructed the painting according to the academic principles espoused by his primary Parisian teacher, Jean-Léon Gérôme.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 81.9 x 117.5 cm]

Vincent van Gogh - Irises [1890]

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

Upon his arrival at the asylum in Saint-Rémy in May 1889, Van Gogh painted views of the institution's overgrown garden. He ignored still-life subjects during his year long hospital stay, but before leaving the artist brought his work in Saint-Rémy full circle with four lush bouquets of spring flowers: two of roses and two of irises, in contrasting formats and colour harmonies. Van Gogh noted that in the "two canvases representing big bunches of violet irises," he placed "one lot against a pink background" and the other "against a startling citron yellow background" to exploit the play of "disparate complementaries." 

Owing to the use of a fugitive red pigment, the "soft and harmonious" effect that he had sought in the Metropolitan's painting through the "combination of greens, pinks, violets" has been altered by the fading of the once pink background to almost white. 

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 73.7 x 92.1 cm]

Vincent van Gogh - Irises [1889]

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

In May 1889, after episodes of self-mutilation and hospitalisation, Vincent van Gogh chose to enter an asylum in Saint-Rémy, France. There, in the last year before his death, he created almost 130 paintings. Within the first week, he began Irises, working from nature in the asylum's garden. The cropped composition, divided into broad areas of vivid colour with monumental irises overflowing its borders, was probably influenced by the decorative patterning of Japanese woodblock prints. 

There are no known drawings for this painting; Van Gogh himself considered it a study. His brother Theo quickly recognised its quality and submitted it to the Salon des Indépendants in September 1889, writing Vincent of the exhibition: "[It] strikes the eye from afar. It is a beautiful study full of air and life." 

Each one of Van Gogh's irises is unique. He carefully studied their movements and shapes to create a variety of curved silhouettes bounded by wavy, twisting, and curling lines. The painting's first owner, French art critic Octave Mirbeau, one of Van Gogh's earliest supporters, wrote: "How well he has understood the exquisite nature of flowers!"

[Paul Getty Museum - Oil on canvas, 28 x 36.625 inches]

Thomas Anshutz - A Rose [1907]

Thomas Anshutz - A Rose [1907], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

One of the most gifted American art teachers, Anshutz links the realism of his mentor Thomas Eakins with that of the Ashcan School, some of whom were his students. Perhaps because Anshutz spent so much time teaching, he painted only about 130 oils. Some of the most impressive belong to a series of images of Rebecca H. Whelen, daughter of a trustee of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where Anshutz taught. The woman at leisure and the likening of a beautiful woman to a flower are common themes in late-nineteenth-century American painting. They reflect the contemporary definition of a woman's proper sphere: the realm of leisure, beauty, and the aesthetic, harmonious domestic environment. 

A Rose reflects Anshutz's simultaneous appreciation of Eakins's academic rigor and psychological probing and John Singer Sargent's painterly freedom. A Rose also suggests the influence of Diego Velázquez and James McNeill Whistler on late-nineteenth-century painters, including Eakins and Sargent as well as Anshutz. In portraying the young woman as contemplative and yet intellectually and emotionally alert, Anshutz also anticipates the earthier women painted by members of the Ashcan School and other twentieth-century realists.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 147.3 x 111.4 cm]

Nicolas de Largillierre - Portrait of a Woman, Perhaps Madame ClaudeLambert de Thorigny [1696]

Nicolas de Largillierre - Portrait of a Woman, Perhaps Madame Claude Lambert de Thorigny [1696], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Largillierre (French, 1668 - 1701) was a portraitist of the wealthy bourgeoisie, and the sitter is traditionally identified as the wife of Claude Lambert de Thorigny, president of the Chambre des Comptes and owner of the Hôtel Lambert on the Île Saint-Louis in Paris. The painting has an airy quality that is unusual for the artist, while the delicate elaboration of the jewelry and the embroidery on the dress are typical.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 139.7 x 106.7 cm]

Sir Joshua Reynolds - The Honourable Henry Fane with Inigo Jones andCharles Blair [1761-66]

Sir Joshua Reynolds - The Honourable Henry Fane with Inigo Jones and Charles Blair [1761-66], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Seated at the centre with a greyhound at his knee is the Honourable Henry Fane, second son of the eighth earl of Westmorland. To the left is Inigo Jones, a relative of the celebrated architect, and to the right Charles Blair, Fane's brother-in-law. Reynolds's largest and most impressive conversation piece, this canvas was begun in 1761 and completed in 1766. In the course of visits to London each of the three gentlemen would have sat for Reynolds separately, in his studio.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 254.6 x 360.7 cm]

Matthew Pratt - The American School [1765]

Matthew Pratt - The American School [1765], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

The picture depicts a scene in the London studio of Benjamin West, who is generally agreed to be the figure standing at the left. Based on comparisons to self-portraits, Pratt (1734 - 1805) is the man at the easel, an accomplished portrait painter. The identities of the other artists represented in the picture remain uncertain, but they are younger and they draw rather than paint. The composition explores the academic tradition as carried out among Americans in late-eighteenth century London.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 91.4 x 127.6 cm]

Robert Frederick Blum - Street Scene in Ikao, Japan

Robert Frederick Blum - Street Scene in Ikao, Japan , a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Watercolour, gouache, and graphite on off-white wove paper, 26.4 x 32.1 cm]

Robert Frederick Blum -The Ameya [by 1893]

Robert Frederick Blum -The Ameya [by 1893] , a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Robert Frederick Blum (Cincinnati, Ohio, July 9, 1857 – New York City, June 8, 1903) was an American artist. He was one of the youngest members of the National Academy of Design, was President of the Painters in Pastel, a member of the Society of American Artists, and the American Watercolour Society. After 1880, he made many annual trips to Europe. He returned to Venice in 1881 and, in 1882, he visited Toledo and Madrid. In 1884 he visited Holland. He visited Japan in 1890 and spent three years there; he had been interested in that country and its art for many years. He died of pneumonia.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 63.7 x 78.9 cm]

Sir Thomas Lawrence - The Calmady Children [1823]

Sir Thomas Lawrence - The Calmady Children [1823], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Emily and Laura Anne were the children of Charles Calmady of Langdon Court in Devonshire. Their portrait, shown at the Royal Academy, and engraved under the title Nature, has always been one of Lawrence's most popular works. He once described it as "my best picture . . . one of the few I should wish hereafter to be known by."

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 78.4 x 76.5 cm]

Samuel Cousins - Nature (The Calmady Children)

Samuel Cousins - Nature (The Calmady Children) , a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Samuel Cousins (English, May 9, 1801 - May 7, 1887) was a mezzotint engraver. After the introduction of steel for engraving purposes about the year 1823, Cousins and his contemporaries were compelled to work on it, because the soft copper previously used for mezzotint plates did not yield a sufficient number of fine impressions to enable the method to compete commercially against line engraving, from which much larger editions were obtainable. The painter-like quality which distinguished the 18th century mezzotints on copper was wanting in his later works, because the hardness of the steel on which they were engraved impaired freedom of execution and richness of tone, and so enhanced the labour of scraping that he accelerated the work by stipple, etching the details instead of scraping them out of the ground in the manner of his predecessors.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Mezzotint, plate 30.6 x 23.8 cm]

Imitator of Johan Barthold Jongkind - Skating in Holland

Imitator of Johan Barthold Jongkind - Skating in Holland, a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

While the artist Johan Barthold Jongkind painted similar compositions to this in the 1860s, this work is likely to be a forgery. Jongkind himself often produced paintings of Dutch subject matter, returning to the Netherlands each year in the 1860s, even when he was settled in Paris.

[National Gallery, London - Oil on canvas, 31.8 x 46.4 cm]

Vincent van Gogh - Van Gogh's Chair [1888]

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

This work was painted while Van Gogh was working in the company of Gauguin at Arles. It was retouched early in 1889. Van Gogh painted a companion picture of Gauguin's armchair, shown by night, now in the Rijksmuseum Vincent Van Gogh, Amsterdam. The two paintings may have been intended to represent the contrasting temperaments and interests of the two artists.

Van Gogh was born in Holland, the son of a pastor; he travelled to London in 1873, and first visited Paris in 1874. Over the next decade he was employed in various ways, including as a lay preacher. By 1883 he had started painting, and in 1885-6 he attended the academy in Antwerp where he was impressed by Japanese prints and by the work of Rubens. On his return to Paris in 1886 he met artists such as Degas, Gauguin and Seurat, and as a result lightened the colours he used. In 1888 Van Gogh settled in Arles in Provence, where he was visited by Gauguin and painted his now famous series of 'Sunflowers'. In the following year a nervous breakdown brought him to a sanatorium at St Remy. In 1890, suffering from a new bout of depression, he shot himself in the chest and died two days later.

[National Gallery, London - Oil on canvas, 91.8 x 73 cm]

Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida - The Bath, Jávea [1905]

Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida - The Bath, Jávea 1905, a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Sorolla (Valencia, 1863 - Cercedilla, 1923) was a precocious draftsman, who, at the age of fifteen, enrolled in the Academy of San Carlos in Valencia. Later, after studying in Rome and Paris, he settled in Valencia, where he developed the high-keyed painterly style for which he is famous. This style resulted from a variety of influences, including Impressionism and the work of Adolph Menzel (1815–1905) and Jules Bastien-Lepage (1848–1884). The seacoast town of Jávea, south of Valencia, provided Sorolla with the subjects for many of his paintings. Some of the most popular were scenes of children swimming. By the early years of the twentieth century, Sorolla had achieved an international reputation.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 90.2 x 128.3 cm]

Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida - Señora de Sorolla [1906]

Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida - Señora de Sorolla [1906], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Clotilde de Sorolla, the wife of the painter, was the daughter of his friend and patron Don Antonio García. The Museum acquired the present painting in 1909, when Sorolla's immense reputation in Spain extended to New York. Between 1911 and 1920, Sorolla completed a series of fourteen mural panels for the Hispanic Society of America, New York.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 186.7 x 118.7 cm]

Eugène-Louis Boudin - View of Trouville [1873]

Eugène-Louis Boudin - View of Trouville [1873], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

The son of a sea captain, Eugène Boudin grew up on the Normandy coast and spent much of his life painting its harbours and beaches. In the 1870s he made several visits to the rapidly expanding seaside resort of Trouville. The beach front of the town, with its grand hotels and casino, was popular with visitors from Paris, but Boudin's love of ships and harbour activity drew him to the port, a sandy basin into which the Touques River fed before reaching the sea through a series of jetties, which are just visible on the far left of the painting. 

The waterfront is dominated by a long row of buildings and ships tied up at the quay, yet these structures are merely a frieze above which gray-lined clouds roll across the sky. Boudin's meticulous attention to atmospheric conditions and cloud formations caused Corot to dub him "king of the skies." Created outdoors on small canvases, Boudin's marine paintings record the contemporary landscape of France in an unidealised fashion. Their charm and intimate scale, well suited for domestic interiors, appealed to collectors.

[Philadelphia Museum of Art - Oil on panel, 31.6 x 57.8 cm]

Jean Béraud - The Church of Saint-Philippe-du-Roule, Paris [c.1877]

Jean Béraud - The Church of Saint-Philippe-du-Roule, Paris [c.1877], 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, St. 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.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 59.4 x 81 cm]

Richard Roland Holst - Farmer by a Haystack [1889]

Richard Roland Holst - Farmer by a Haystack [1889], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Richard Roland Holst (Amsterdam, December 4, 1868 - Bloemendaal, December 31, 1938) was a Dutch visual artist.

[Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam - Oil on canvas on cardboard, 24.9 x 31.9 cm]

Marinus van Reymerswale - Saint Jerome in His Study [c.1535-45]

Marinus van Reymerswale - Saint Jerome in His Study [c.1535-45], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Marinus van Reymerswale (Reimerswaal, c.1490 - Goes, c.1546) was a Dutch painter.

[Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam - Oil on panel, 80.5 x 109 cm]

Jacob Maris - Harbour View [c.1887]

Jacob Maris - Harbour View [c.1887], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam - Oil on canvas, 30 x 45.5 cm]

Terrick John Williams - Aberdeen Harbour View

Terrick John Williams - Aberdeen Harbour View , a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Williams (1860 - 1936) painted several views of Aberdeen Harbour and views of the River Dee, although none are dated, making it difficult to securely date the works. The present study of fishermen unloading their small craft by the quayside, however, has the loose brushwork, vivid colouristic effects, and almost incidental treatment of the human element typical of works Williams painted after 1915.

The sheltered estuary of the River Dee is a natural harbour that has effectively been in use for millennia, though the advent of steam trawling in the 1880s meant a significant increase of activity in the harbor, which had a lasting effect on the local fishing industry.

This painting was recently sold by Bonhams for GB £2,160.00 including premium.

[Oil on canvas, 30.5 x 41 cm]

Isaac Israels - Boy and Girl on Donkeys [1896-1901]

Isaac Israels - Boy and Girl on Donkeys [1896-1901], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, oil on cardboard, 46 x 54 cm]

Winslow Homer - Boys in a Dory [1873]

Winslow Homer - Boys in a Dory [1873], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

This charming sheet dates from the first phase of Homer's professional work in watercolor. Having visited a landmark exhibition sponsored by the American Society of Painters in Water Colours in New York, Homer spent the summer of 1873 in Gloucester, Massachusetts, the picturesque fishing port on Cape Ann, north of Boston. There, he undertook a series of small-scale watercolours depicting boys and girls rowing dories, sitting on the wharves, involved in modest tasks, or playing on the beach. 

Homer's early watercolours are simple and direct, reflecting the innocent, idyllic nature of his subjects. They also reveal his cautious approach to the new medium, in that they feature washes of colour carefully applied within pale pencil outlines and much opaque pigment. Nonetheless, Boys in a Dory, in particular, demonstrates Homer's ability to capture the scintillating effects of dazzling sunlight, rippling water, and luminous atmosphere in boat-filled Gloucester Harbour. Such effects predict the brilliance of his later travel watercolours, grand sheets that validate his prediction: "You will see, in the future I will live by my watercolours."

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Watercolour washes and gouache over graphite underdrawing on medium rough textured white wove paper, 24.8 x 35.2 cm]

Hendrick van Steenwyck the Younger - The Courtyard of a Renaissance Palace [1610]

Hendrick van Steenwyck the Younger - The Courtyard of a Renaissance Palace [1610], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

This painting presumably shows a scene from the Bible or classical history, but the subject has not been identified. Traditionally it was said to show Aeneas in the Palace of Dido. The architecture, landscape and sky are certainly by Hendrick van Steenwyck the Younger but the figures are probably by another hand.

Van Steenwyck was probably taught by his father, who had fled the Netherlands and settled in Frankfurt. He was in London by 1617, and probably remained there until 1637. By 1645 he had settled in the Northern Netherlands, where he died. He was a painter of church interiors and architectural scenes.

[National Gallery, London - Oil on copper, 40.2 x 69.8 cm]

Kees Van Dongen - Woman in a Black Hat [1908]

Kees Van Dongen - Woman in a Black Hat [1908], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg - Oil on canvas, 100 x 81.5 cm]

Anton Mauve - A Cottage by a Ditch [1870-88]

Anton Mauve - A Cottage by a Ditch [1870-88], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam - Oil on canvas, 36 x 49 cm]

Jacob van Ruisdael - A Cottage and a Hayrick by a River [c.1646-50]

Jacob van Ruisdael - A Cottage and a Hayrick by a River [c.1646-50], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Jacob van Ruisdael's early work, like this delicate landscape of the 1640s, is often influenced by the style of his uncle, Salomon van Ruysdael, who may have been one of his teachers. This river landscape is characteristic of Salomon's compositions. In the late 18th and 19th centuries this picture had a companion piece, A Cornfield, the present location of which is unknown. A drawing related to the composition is known and a variant survives in Detroit (Institute of Arts).

[National Gallery, London - Oil on oak, 26 x 33.4 cm]

Anna Petersen - Breton Girl looking after Plants in Hothouse [1884]

Anna Petersen - Breton Girl looking after Plants in Hothouse [1884], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

In Anna Petersen’s day women were not allowed to vote, nor to enrol at the Academy of Fine Arts. The artist has shown this woman engaged in thought rather than labour, thereby manifesting how women are independent, thinking beings in their own right.

The girl looking after plants in a hothouse is not, in fact, looking after anything while she is being painted. This may be because she is modelling, but also because she has an inner life of such strength and fervour that she cannot simply just toil. In the 1880s, painting women with inner lives of their own clearly demonstrates how women are arriving at a new sense of self-worth. They are not simply the property of men, nor are they unthinking creatures ruled by their urges. This woman is her own mistress, and she knows how to cultivate nature. She lives at a time ripe for replanting in order for new flowers to grow - both at a concrete level and metaphorically.

[National Gallery of Denmark]

William Bouguereau - Breton Brother and Sister [1871]

William Bouguereau - Breton Brother and Sister [1871], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Bouguereau made his fortune by producing idyllic images of women and children for enthusiastic American collectors. As a critic of the time explained, "Whoever gets a picture by Bouguereau gets the full worth of his money, in finished painting, first-rate drawing, and a subject and treatment that no well-bred person can…fault."

This picture is one of several works that the artist based on sketches made while summering in Brittany in the late 1860s. It was completed in his studio in 1871; Catharine Lorillard Wolfe’s father, the real estate and hardware baron John David Wolfe (1792–1872), purchased the painting from the New York gallery M. Knoedler & Co. in November of that year, just six months before his death. He left the picture to his daughter along with a considerable fortune, which she channeled into her increasingly ambitious activities as a collector and philanthropist. By the time of her death in 1887, she was said to have given away over four million dollars.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 129.2 x 89.2 cm]

Simon Kirk - Portrait of an Old Man [1639]

Simon Kirk - Portrait of an Old Man [1639], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam - Oil on panel, 71 x 55 cm]

Pietro Rotari - Young Woman [1756-62]

Pietro Rotari - Young Woman [1756-62], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Pietro Rotari (Verona, September 30, 1707 - St. Petersburg, August 31, 1762) was an Italian painter. He was much in demand as a portraitist, and painted royal families in Dresden and Saint Petersburg.

[Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam - Oil on canvas, 46 x 36 cm]

Edgar Degas - Self-Portrait with Christine and Yvonne Lerolle [probably 1895-96]

Edgar Degas - Self-Portrait with Christine and Yvonne Lerolle [probably 1895-96] , a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Degas's brief but passionate involvement with photography resulted in a small body of fascinating and engaging pictures. Most of his surviving photographs are figure studies, self-portraits, and portraits of his intimate circle of friends - the families of Ludovic Halévy, Stéphane Mallarmé, Henry Lerolle, Auguste Renoir, Jacques-Emile Blanche, and others-in settings suggestive of realms more psychological than physical. In this magical image, one of Degas' finest, the artist himself seems to lean back deep in thought, conjuring up an image of youthful feminine grace in the form of the white-clad Lerolle daughters.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Gelatin silver print, 37.1 x 29.3 cm]

Henri-Joseph Harpignies - Moonrise [1885]

Henri-Joseph Harpignies - Moonrise [1885], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Harpignies' career as a painter began late, after he had given up a commercial career in his native town, Valenciennes. Although he had a studio in Paris, he maintained close ties with artists and friends in Valenciennes, where he played a more active role than in the Paris art world. In 1883 he signed a contract with the firm of Arnold and Tripp, art dealers in Paris, that freed him from the management and sale of his work. Moonrise, inspired by a passage from the poetry of Victor Hugo, is a painting that was commissioned by the artist's dealers, who presented the canvas to the Museum in 1886. Harpignies treated the romantic theme with characteristic directness, in a style influenced by the Barbizon painters and especially Corot.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art - Oil on canvas, 87.6 x 163.2 cm]

James Abbott McNeill Whistler - Nocturne [1875-80]

James Abbott McNeill Whistler - Nocturne [1875-80], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Philadelphia Museum of Art - Oil on canvas, 31.1 x 51.8 cm]

Camille Pissarro - Steamboats in the Port of Rouen [1896]

Camille Pissarro - Steamboats in the Port of Rouen [1896], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

This is one of fifteen paintings that Pissarro executed in Rouen in the autumn of 1896. Most of the works were painted from the window of his room at the Hôtel d'Angleterre. This view shows the busy quay with the working-class quarter of Saint-Sever across the river in the background.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 45.7 x 54.6 cm]

Emile Claus - Steamboats on the Thames [1916]

Emile Claus - Steamboats on the Thames [1916], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Emile Claus (Sint-Eloois-Vijve, September 27, 1849 – Astene, June 14, 1924) was a Belgian painter. An important person in the life of Emile Claus was the lady painter Jenny Montigny. She followed master classes at his workshop in Astene and for years travelled back and forth between Ghent and Astene. Although Claus was 26 years older than she was, they began a relationship that would last until Claus' death. This painting was sold at Sotheby's on May 30, 2008 for GB £120,500.

[Oil on canvas, 92 x 92 cm]

Nathaniel Dance - Conversation Piece (Portrait of James Grant of Grant,John Mytton, the Honorable Thomas Robinson, and Thomas Wynne) [c.1760]

Nathaniel Dance - Conversation Piece (Portrait of James Grant of Grant, John Mytton, the Honorable Thomas Robinson, and Thomas Wynne) [c.1760], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

A conversation piece is an informal group portrait, often depicting friends. This is one of four almost identical canvases painted in 1760–61, one for each of the four sitters. With the ruins of the Colosseum plainly visible in the background, the picture records the young men's trip to Rome. Known as the Grand Tour, such travel was a standard part of the education of eighteenth-century English gentlemen.

[Philadelphia Museum of Art - Oil on canvas, 96.2 x 123.2 cm]

William Hogarth - Conversation Piece (Portrait of Sir Andrew Fountainewith Other Men and Women) [c.1730-35]

William Hogarth - Conversation Piece (Portrait of Sir Andrew Fountaine with Other Men and Women) [c.1730-35], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Philadelphia Museum of Art - Oil on canvas, 47.6 x 58.4 cm]

Canaletto - Venice, Santa Maria della Salute [c.1740]

Canaletto - Venice, Santa Maria della Salute [c.1740], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

A bird's eye view is to a degree imaginary, even if the scene is real, and this view is taken from high above the Grand Canal and the landing stage at Santa Maria della Salute. The panorama embraces the entrance to the canal in the direction of the bacino, with, at the right, the façade and dome of the church, one of the most splendid sights that Venice affords. The Salute church was designed by Baldassare Longhena (1598–1682) and built beginning in 1631, in thanksgiving for the deliverance of the city from the virulent plague of the previous year. Beyond is the façade of the Seminario Patriarcale and further along the tower of the Dogana, or Customs House, seen above warehouse roofs. At the left on the waterfront are some of the most important buildings in Venice: the mint, the library, one of the columns in the Piazzetta, Palazzo Ducale, and the prison, with the Riva degli Schiavoni stretching in a gentle curve toward the right. In the foreground are gondolas; beyond, large numbers of ocean-going ships, their rigging silhouetted against the sky. 

The scene, compressed in depth and painted with maximum clarity in a clear light with slanting shadows, is probably from about 1740. Canaletto's earliest picture of the canal and the Salute from the west is ten or twelve years earlier, while his largest and most famous canvas of this subject dates to 1744 and is in the British royal collection.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 47.6 x 79.4 cm]