Gaspar de Crayer - Roman Charity [1620-30]

Gaspar de Crayer - Roman Charity [1620-30], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Gaspar de Crayer (Antwerp, November 18, 1582 - Ghent, January 27, 1669) was a Flemish painter. Crayer was one of the most productive yet one of the most conscientious artists of the later Flemish school, second to Rubens in vigour and below Van Dyck in refinement, but nearly equalling both in most of the essentials of painting. His pictures abound in the churches and museums of Brussels and Ghent; and there is scarcely a country chapel in Flanders or Brabant that cannot offer one or more of his canvases.

[Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid - Oil on canvas, 198 x 144 cm]

Peter Paul Rubens - The Three Graces [c.1636-38]

Peter Paul Rubens - The Three Graces [c.1636-38], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

In Greek mythology, a Charis is one of several Charites, goddesses of charm, beauty, nature, human creativity and fertility. They ordinarily numbered three, from youngest to oldest: Aglaea (Splendour), Euphrosyne (Mirth), and Thalia (Good Cheer). In Roman mythology they were known as the Gratiae, the Graces. In some cases Charis was one of the Graces and was not the plural form of their name. Homer wrote that they were part of the retinue of Aphrodite. The Charites were also associated with the Greek underworl and the Eleusinian Mysteries. The river Cephissus near Delphi was sacred to them.

[National Gallery, London - Oil on canvas, 221 x 181 cm]

Pieter Bruegel the Elder - The Tower of Babel [1563]

Pieter Bruegel the Elder - The Tower of Babel [1563], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Bruegel’s monumental composition had several forerunners in Netherlandish painting, but his work became the most famous classic among the Tower of Babel depictions and was frequently copied in many different variations. The sense of scale is provided by the flemish-style port city, which is impressively tiny in comparison to the tower. With meticulous precision and encyclopaedic interest Bruegel depicts an abundance of technical and mechanical details, from the supply of the building materials in the busy harbour to the various cranes and the scaffolding on the unfinished brick foundation. He sets the workers’ dwellings into the stone outer structure, which blends elements of classical with Romanesque architecture, and they appear to be more than merely temporary. By anchoring the building on the rocky slope, Bruegel creates the impression of static equilibrium. Reaching up to the clouds, the building, however, is optically distorted and appears to have slightly sunk into the ground on the left side. This is an artistic gesture, on the one hand enhancing the impression of the building’s monumentality, and on the other hand alluding to human hubris and the impossibility of completing the tower because “the Lord confused the language of all the earth.”

[Kunsthistorishes Museum, Vienna - Oil on wood, 155 x 114 cm]

Pierre-Auguste Cot - Springtime [1873]

Pierre-Auguste Cot - Springtime [1873], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Cot (French, Bedarieux, 1837 - Paris, 1883), who received his academic training at the hands of Bouguereau, Cabanel, and Léon Cogniet, first exhibited at the Salon of 1863. For the next two decades he enjoyed success as a painter of allegorical and historical pictures and as a fashionable portraitist. This painting remains Cot’s most celebrated work. It was exhibited to great acclaim at the Salon of 1873, which also featured Bouguereau’s Nymphs and Satyr. John Wolfe bought both paintings after the close of the Salon and hung them side-by-side in his stately Manhattan residence.

A visitor to the Wolfe home described the flirtatious duo in Springtime as "in the most dangerous and inflammable of the teens…The cunning eagerness with which the maid looks right into the boy’s eyes is modern in meaning and antique in dress; hence the acceptability of this Arcadian idyll, peppered with French spice."

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 213.4 x 127 cm]

Seymour Joseph Guy - The Contest for the Bouquet, The Family of RobertGordon in Their New York Dining-Room [1866]

Seymour Joseph Guy - The Contest for the Bouquet, The Family of Robert Gordon in Their New York Dining-Room [1866], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

A British-born financier, an art collector, and a founding trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gordon ordered this portrait, which shows his family in their home on West Thirty-third Street. He is absent from the scene, but his presence permeates it, even in the setting: the dining room, which was considered a male domain in contrast to the more feminine space of the parlour. The oldest boy's competitive grab for the prize suggests that he will be prepared to follow in his successful father's footsteps. His sister reaches for the bouquet but observes feminine propriety. The younger boy, who has adventurously climbed on a chair, mimics his older brother. The little girl seeks safety from the commotion on her mother's lap. Frances Burton Gordon, an observant but marginal actor in the scene, signals the watchful maternal influence that was increasingly fashionable in parenting after the Civil War.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 62.5 x 74.9 cm]

Jean-Léon Gérôme - Cafe House, Cairo (Casting Bullets) [probably 1870s]

Jean-Léon Gérôme - Cafe House, Cairo (Casting Bullets) [probably 1870s], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Bashi-bazouks, mercenary soldiers in the army of the Turkish sultan, were known for their lawlessness and brutality, but Gérôme usually depicted them at leisure rather than engaged in battle. His frequent repetitions of the subject over a thirty-year period, in conjunction with a style that matured early and changed little, make these canvases difficult to date. The present picture is thought to have been painted in the 1870s.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 54.6 x 62.9 cm]

Antonio Maria Esquivel Suarez de Urbina - Contemporary Poets [1846]

Antonio Maria Esquivel Suarez de Urbina - Contemporary Poets [1846], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

The most famous painting of Esquivel and a capital piece of Spanish Romanticism. Considered the most graphic testimony to the intellectual environment during the reign of Isabel II (1830-1904), this canvas fictitiously joins the most relevant contemporary cultural personalities of Esquivel. This work was first presented at the annual exhibition of the Royal Academy of San Fernando in 1846. It comes from the Ministry of Development, from where it went to the Prado by Royal Order of April 17, 1886.

Antonio Maria Esquivel Suarez de Urbina (Seville, March 8, 1806 - Madrid, April 9, 1857) was a Spanish painter who specialised in romantic themes and portraits. In 1839 the artist suffered an illness that left him virtually blind. He attempted suicide by jumping into the river Guardalquivir. Thanks to a prestigious French ophthalmologist, his sight was restored in 1840.

[Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid - Oil on canvas, 144 x 217 cm]

Manuel Domínguez Sánchez - Seneca’s Suicide [1871]

Manuel Domínguez Sánchez - Seneca’s Suicide [1871], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Seneca, the teacher of Emperor Nero, was charged with treason and sentenced to death. As a final contempt of imperial power, the philosopher decided to commit suicide, first cutting his wrists and then taking poison, but ultimately it was the vapors of a brazier which ended his suffering. The tableaux reflects Seneca lying in the tub of water while friends mourn his death. Behind the group we can see the brazier still smoking.

[Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid - Oil on canvas, 270 x 450 cm]

Pieter de Hooch - Leisure Time in an Elegant Setting [c.1663-65]

Pieter de Hooch - Leisure Time in an Elegant Setting [c.1663-65], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Like his contemporary Johannes Vermeer, Pieter de Hooch played a pioneering role in the advancement of genre painting in seventeenth century Holland. He was especially gifted as a painter of interiors, complex spatial arrangements stunningly beautiful in the manipulation of light. This picture is richly decorated with a marble floor and gilt-leather wall coverings, articulated by diffuse light from the window at left. The merry dialogue in the near ground is foiled by the mysterious encounter of a young man and elderly bearded figure in the antechamber and vestibule. De Hooch achieves extraordinary clarity and geometry in this grandly furnished chamber, qualities evocative of paintings he made in Amsterdam in the 1660s.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 58.3 x 69.4 cm]

Pieter de Hooch - Interior with a Young Couple [c.1665]

Pieter de Hooch - Interior with a Young Couple [c.1665], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

De Hooch (1629 - 1684) probably painted this picture shortly after he moved from Delft to Amsterdam in the early 1660s. The subtle variation of direct and reflected light through a succession of rooms was an effect achieved by De Hooch during his activity in Delft. Some areas of the painting, particularly the figures and the floor, have suffered from abrasion.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 54.9 x 62.9 cm]

Merry-Joseph Blondel - Venus Healing Eneas [19th century]

Merry-Joseph Blondel - Venus Healing Eneas [19th century], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Merry-Joseph Blondel (Paris, July 25, 1781 - June 12, 1853) was a French neo-classicist painter. 

[Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid - Oil on canvas, 127 x 96 cm]

Eugenio Cajés - The Fable of Leda [1604]

Eugenio Cajés - The Fable of Leda [1604], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Eugenio Cajés (Madrid, 1575 - 1634) learned to paint from his father, a Tuscan painter who had worked in Spain since 1567. As a youth, he visited Italy with his father and must have received training in Florence, since his drawing style owes much to Tuscan artistic models. His earliest commissions were collaborations with his father. 

Cajés began working for Philip III in 1608, becoming painter to the king in 1612. For his first important work, he decorated a chapel in Toledo Cathedral. His early works are characterised by the dramatic artificiality typical of Mannerism, while his mature works reflect a move toward naturalism. 

[Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid - Oil on canvas, 165 x 193 cm]

Antonio Carnicero - Ascent of a Montgolfier Balloon in Aranjuez [1784]

Antonio Carnicero - Ascent of a Montgolfier Balloon in Aranjuez [1784], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

In this painting the Montgolfier balloon was launched on June 5, 1784 in the garden of Aranjuez in the presence of the royal family, the court, and the general population. The work was commissioned by the Duke of Osuna. The painting was sold at the auction of the Duke’s property in 1896 and acquired by the Ministry of Development for the Prado.

[Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid - Oil on canvas, 169 x 279.5 cm]

Frederick Brown - Impromptu Dance, a Scene on the Chelsea Embankment[1883]

Frederick Brown - Impromptu Dance, a Scene on the Chelsea Embankment [1883], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Frederick Brown was born in Chelmsford in 1851. From 1868-1877 he studied at the National Art Training School (later the Royal College of Art), where he grew to resent the mechanical teaching methods then prevalent in Britain. He subsequently became a successful art teacher himself, first at the Westminster School of Art (1877-92) and later at the Slade in direct succession to Alphonse Legros, from 1893-1918. Much inspired by Legros’ reforms at the Slade, Brown encouraged his students to develop their own individual style. It is hardly surprising that Brown should have become a founder of the New English Art Club in 1886, and author of its constitution, establishing a group of discontented artists who favoured the naturalism and spontaneity of plein-air painting over the conservatism of the Royal Academy in particular and the Academic tradition in general and which included such luminaries as Harold Gilman, Roger Fry, William Rothenstein, John Lavery, Water Sickert, Philip Wilson Steer and John Singer Sargent among its members.

[Bonhams, sold for £162,400 including premium - Oil on canvas, 106 x 153 cm]

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes - Tamaris [c.1886-8

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes - Tamaris [c.1886-8 , a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

The small plants with pink blossoms surrounding the reclining nude suggest that the artist intended her to be a personification of the tamarisk, or tamarix, a shrub named after the valley of Tamaris in the Var, in southeastern France. The broad style is characteristic of Puvis about 1886.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 25.4 x 39.4 cm]

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes - Inter Artes et Naturam (Between Art andNature)

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes - Inter Artes et Naturam (Between Art and Nature) , a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

The growth of Puvis's reputation as a decorative painter was aided by his practice of exhibiting smaller versions of the mural-size works that he painted for public buildings throughout France. Inter Artes et Naturam is a reduced replica of the central panel of a triptych painted for the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen, in 1888–91. The artist chose the program, basing it on the museum's collections of antiquities and locally produced ceramics and pottery. The scene shows men excavating classical architectural fragments, and women decorating pottery on the hillside of Bonsecours, a suburb of Rouen. In the distance are the Seine and a panoramic view of the city.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 40.3 x 113.7 cm]

Jean Baptiste Greuze - Broken Eggs [1756]

Jean Baptiste Greuze - Broken Eggs [1756], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Broken Eggs attracted favourable comment when exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1757. One critic noted that the young girl had a noble pose worthy of a history painter. Its pendant was The Neapolitan Gesture of 1757 (Worcester Art Museum) in which several of the same models appear, but the seducer is foiled by the old woman.

This picture was painted in Rome, but the principal source may have been a seventeenth-century Dutch painting by Frans van Mieris the Elder (State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg), which Greuze would have known from an engraving. The broken eggs symbolise the loss of the serving girl's virginity.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 73 x 94 cm]

Jerome B Thompson - The Belated Party on Mansfield Mountain [1858]

Jerome B Thompson - The Belated Party on Mansfield Mountain [1858], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Jerome Thompson (Middleboro, Massachusetts, 1814 - Glen Gardner, New Jersey, 1886) became a painter of luminous landscapes, often allegorical with rural figures in the foreground. His father was Cephas Thompson, distinguished portrait painter, who refused to give Jerome art lessons and even destroyed his early paintings because he wanted him to be a farmer. 

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 96.5 x 160.3 cm]

Georges Seurat - Study for Les Poseuses [1886]

Georges Seurat - Study for Les Poseuses [1886], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

In his drawings, Seurat frequently employed Conté crayon, a medium that allowed him to achieve rich velvety textures and softly blurred contours. This sheet, one of three by the artist in the Robert Lehman Collection, is a preparatory sketch for one of Seurat's most famous works, Les Poseuses (The Models), now in the Barnes Foundation, Marion, Pennsylvania.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Conté crayon on laid paper, 29.7 x 22.5 cm]

Georges Seurat - A Woman Fishing [1884]

Georges Seurat - A Woman Fishing [1884], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Conté crayon, 30.8 x 23.8 cm]

Workshop of Peter Paul Rubens - The Judgement of Solomon [1611-14]

Workshop of Peter Paul Rubens - The Judgement of Solomon [1611-14], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

This work is not documented until 1746, when it belonged to the collection of Queen Elizabeth Farnese in Madrid.

[Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid - Oil on canvas, 184 x 218.5 cm]

Joachim Wtewael - Mars and Venus Surprised by the Gods [1610-14]

Joachim Wtewael - Mars and Venus Surprised by the Gods [1610-14], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

In the Metamorphoses, the Roman author Ovid tells the story of how the lovers Venus and Mars were surprised by Venus's husband, Vulcan. Vulcan, a blacksmith, forged an invisible bronze net, which he secretly attached to Mars's bed. Here Vulcan stands upon Mars's armor, discarded at the right, while Cupid and Apollo hover above, drawing back the green canopy to reveal the astonished lovers in an embrace. Other gods and goddesses also gather to witness and mock the adulterous couple. In a scene beyond the bed, Vulcan hammers his net at the forge. 

Exaggerated poses and brilliant, jewel-like colour emphasize the dramatic intensity of the scene. The hard, metallic surface of the copper lends itself to highly finished and detailed pictures. Because of the erotic subject matter, the painting's early owners may have concealed the painting behind a curtain or in a drawer, which preserved its lustrous appearance. 

[Getty Centre, Los Angeles - Oil on copper, 8 x 6.1875 inches]

Francisco Bayeu y Subias - The Canal Bridge in Madrid [1784]

Francisco Bayeu y Subias - The Canal Bridge in Madrid [1784], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Francisco Bayeu y Subias (Zaragoza, March 9, 1734 - August 4, 1795) was a Spanish painter, active in a Neoclassic style, whose main subjects were religious and historical themes. In 1767 he was named court painter for Charles III, king of Spain. He was involved in the decoration of various Royal palaces near Madrid. He helped provide designs for tapestries. 

[Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid - Oil on canvas, 36 x 95 cm]

Paul-Jacques-Aimé Baudry - The Wave and the Pearl [1862]

Paul-Jacques-Aimé Baudry - The Wave and the Pearl [1862], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid - Oil on canvas, 83.5 x 178 cm]

Petrus Christus - A Goldsmith in His Shop [1449]

Petrus Christus - A Goldsmith in His Shop [1449], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Justly celebrated as one of the most famous masterpieces of Northern Renaissance art, this work shows a goldsmith in a tiny shop outfitted with the finely wrought civic, secular, and ecclesiastic wares of his trade, displayed on the shelves at the right. Commissioned by the goldsmith's guild of Bruges, the painting is a virtual advertisement of its services. The main figure may be Saint Eligius, patron saint of goldsmiths, as traditionally believed, or a realistic depiction, perhaps even a portrait, of an actual goldsmith in fifteenth-century Bruges.

Standing in the goldsmith's shop is an aristocratic young couple in sumptuous garb buying a wedding ring that is being weighed on a small handheld scale. An elaborately displayed sash or girdle, a further reference to matrimony, extends over the open ledge of the shop into the space of the viewer. The convex mirror at the right, which reflects the market square beyond the counter, is an even bolder illusionistic device linking the pictorial space to that of the viewer. Seen in the mirror are two dandified male figures, one of whom holds a falcon.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on oak panel, painted surface 98 x 85.2 cm]

Paul Chabas - September Morn [c.1912]

Paul Chabas - September Morn [c.1912], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Paul Chabas (Nantes, March 7, 1869 - Paris, May 10, 1937) was a French painter and illustrator. His most famous painting, September Morn, became a "Succes de scandale" in the United States in May, 1913, when Anthony Comstock, head of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, protested against the painting as supposedly immoral. There was much publicity, and reproductions of the painting sold briskly for years afterwards. September Morn has often been cited as an example of kitsch.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 163.8 x 216.5 cm]

Gerard ter Borch - Horse Stable [c.1652-54]

Gerard ter Borch - Horse Stable [c.1652-54], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

A dappled gray horse feeds at a manger while a man brushes his coat. A horse blanket and bridle hang from a pole in the foreground and other barnyard utensils, a pitchfork, broom, and pail, fill the stable. To the right, a fashionably dressed woman appears at a doorway that connects to the main farmhouse. Light from the open doorway illuminates the animal, the painting's center of attention. 

Domestic animals like this carefully groomed horse would have been valued possessions of their prosperous owners during the 1600s in Holland. Clues such as the orderly and well-built stable and the woman's handsome dress and jewellery indicate that this was a well-to-do middle-class household. 

Gerard ter Borch's paintings are noted for their subtlety of composition, close attention to detail, and delicate colour. In Horse Stable he used a palette of warm browns and grays, brightened by the red accents of the man's hat, the woman's skirt, and the bricks on the left-hand wall. 

[Getty Centre, Los Angeles - Oil on panel, 17.8125 x 21.1875 inches]

Thomas Gainsborough - Portrait of William Anne Hollis Presenting a Cupto Thomas Clutterbuck [c.1784-85]

Thomas Gainsborough - Portrait of William Anne Hollis Presenting a Cup to Thomas Clutterbuck [c.1784-85], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Thomas Gainsborough painted the fourth Earl of Essex presenting a silver cup to Thomas Clutterbuck, a member of a prominent local family and also sheriff of the English county of Hertfordshire. In 1784 the Earl of Essex commissioned the painting by Gainsborough to commemorate the presentation of the cup, which had actually taken place twelve years earlier. He then gave the painting to Clutterbuck. The two families maintained close ties throughout the nineteenth century, and the silver cup is still in the Clutterbuck family's possession. The painting, although it was paid for by the earl, also remained with the family until the Getty Museum purchased it in 1972. 

[Getty Centre, Los Angeles - Oil on canvas, 58.5 x 68.5 inches]

Frederic Edwin Church - Heart of the Andes [1859]

Frederic Edwin Church - Heart of the Andes [1859], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

This picture was inspired by Church's second trip to South America in the spring of 1857. Church (Hartford, Connecticut, 1826 - New York City, 1900) sketched prolifically throughout his nine weeks travel in Ecuador, and many extant watercolours and drawings contain elements found in this work. The picture was publicly unveiled in New York at Lyrique Hall, 756 Broadway, on April 27, 1859. Subsequently moved to the gallery of the Tenth Street Studio Building, it was lit by gas jets concealed behind silver reflectors in a darkened chamber. The work caused a sensation, and twelve to thirteen thousand people paid twenty-five cents apiece to file by it each month. The picture was also shown in London, where it was greatly admired as well.

See: resources.metmuseum.org/resources/metpublications/pdf/Chu...

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 168 x 302.9 cm]

Frederic Edwin Church - The Parthenon [1871]

Frederic Edwin Church - The Parthenon [1871], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Church visited Greece in 1869 and spent several weeks in Athens. There, he painted numerous studies and oil sketches of the ruins of the Parthenon that later served as the basis for this work. Although he intended to paint a large canvas of the Parthenon while still in Greece, it was not until 1871 that a commission from the financier and philanthropist Morris K. Jesup permitted Church to begin this large canvas. By February of that year, he was already at work on "a big Parthenon". By May, he had apparently finished the painting and wrote of his concern for its proper lighting in Jesup's home. The picture was first exhibited in New York at Goupil's Gallery in 1872 where it was highly acclaimed. It appeared subsequently in many major exhibitions, including the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1878.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 113 x 184.5 cm]

Claude Monet - Sainte-Adresse [1867]

Claude Monet - Sainte-Adresse [1867], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

In stylistic terms, this painting is consistent with the seascapes Monet produced during the summer and fall of 1867. There is a new awareness of the particular atmospheric character of the scene, reflecting Monet's growing acuity as a landscape painter. The overcast day is skillfully captured through the grayish tonalities of the sky, the water, and the beach. A stronger emphasis is also given to the paint surface, with rapidly applied touches of colour that help characterize rather than carefully delineate the scene. The relative simplicity of the composition, the elimination of detail, and the fresh, varied quality of the brushwork all suggest that this painting may have been executed at least in part on site rather than entirely in the studio.

[National Gallery of Art, Washington - Oil on canvas, 57 x 80 cm]

Louis Moeller - Sculptor’s Studio [c.1880s]

Louis Moeller - Sculptor’s Studio [c.1880s], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Louis Moeller (New Yotk City, August 5, 1856 - Weehawken, New Jersey, 1930) was an American genre painter.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 58.4 x 76.2 cm]

Jan Brueghel the Elder - Taste, Hearing and Touch [c.1620]

Jan Brueghel the Elder - Taste, Hearing and Touch [c.1620], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid - Oil on canvas, 176 x 264 cm]

Pieter Bruegel the Elder - The Triumph of Death [c.1562]

Pieter Bruegel the Elder - The Triumph of Death [c.1562], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

This painting is a morality play showing the triumph of Death over worldly things, symbolized by a large army of skeletons destroying Earth. In the background is a barren landscape where even more scenes of destruction are developed. In the foreground, Death leading his armies on a red horse, destroys the world of the living, who are led to a huge coffin, without hope of salvation. All social classes are included in the composition. Some try to fight their doom, others are abandoned to their fate. Only a pair of lovers in the bottom right, remains outside the future they also have to suffer. 

[Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid - Oil on panel, 117 x 162 cm]

Auguste Renoir - Two Young Girls at the Piano [1892]

Auguste Renoir - Two Young Girls at the Piano [1892], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

In late 1891 or early 1892 Renoir was invited by the French government to execute a painting for a new museum in Paris, the Musée du Luxembourg, which was to be devoted to the work of living artists. He chose as his subject two girls at the piano. Aware of the intense scrutiny to which his submission would be subjected, Renoir lavished extraordinary care on this project, developing and refining the composition in a series of five canvases. The Lehman painting and the nearly identical version formerly in the collection of Renoir's fellow Impressionist Gustave Caillebotte have long been regarded as the most accomplished variants of this intimate and engaging scene of bourgeois domestic life.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 111.8 x 86.4 cm]

James Tissot - Tea [1872]

James Tissot - Tea [1872], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

When Tissot moved to London in 1871, he immersed himself in the local scene, with work for Vanity Fair and genre paintings with the river Thames as backdrop. Tea is a repetition of the left-hand portion of one of his most famous London scenes, Bad News (National Museum of Wales, Cardiff), which shows a captain and his girlfriend absorbing the news of his imminent departure while a companion prepares tea. Bad News shows the Pool of London through the tavern windows, while Tea displays the dense London cityscape beyond that stretch of the river. Tissot's friend Edgar Degas owned a pencil study for this picture.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on wood, 66 x 47.9 cm]

Attributed to Claude-Joseph Vernet - A Seaport [late 18th century]

Attributed to Claude-Joseph Vernet - A Seaport [late 18th century], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

The coat of arms on the wall at the right may stand for Marseilles or Toulon. The scenery may be based on that of Toulon. The picture has been ascribed to Lacroix de Marseille, who closely imitated Vernet; it does not seem of sufficient quality to be by Vernet himself.

[National Gallery, London - Oil on canvas, 97.2 x 134 cm]

Hendrick Pot - A Merry Company at Table [1630]

Hendrick Pot - A Merry Company at Table [1630], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

The brothel scene or 'bordeeltje' was a popular theme in Dutch genre painting. Here, an elderly woman supervises the proceedings and wine and oysters are offered - both of which are known for their aphrodisiac qualities. Her age and ugliness is contrasted with the youth and beauty of the young women. This comparison has the moralising overtones of a vanitas and underlines the transience of earthly beauty and possessions and the inevitability of age, decay and death.

Hendrick Pot was probably born in Haarlem. He is thought to have been a pupil of Karel van Mander. He worked in Haarlem where he was Dean of the guild in 1626, 1630 and 1635. In 1632 he was in London and after 1648 in Amsterdam, where he died. He was a chiefly a portrait and genre painter.

[National Gallery, London - Oil on oak, 32.3 x 49.6 cm]

Nicolas Poussin - The Birth of Venus [1635 or 1636]

Nicolas Poussin - The Birth of Venus [1635 or 1636], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

The subject of this grand mythological painting remains a topic of lively debate: some see the birth of Venus, some see her triumphal parade, and others see the sea god Neptune's marine procession. There is even disagreement as to whether Venus is depicted at all. The woman in the centre might instead be Galatea, a sea nymph who is often shown riding in a cockleshell chariot drawn by dolphins. As reflected here, Poussin exercised great skill in introducing multiple meanings and rich ambiguity into his paintings of classical themes. This painting used to belong to Catherine the Great and still bears a Russian inscription on the frame and a Hermitage Museum inventory number on the lower left corner of the canvas. It was sold by the Soviet government in 1930.

[Philadelphia Museum of Art - Oil on canvas, 97.2 x 108 cm]

Jean-François de Troy - Diana and Her Nymphs Bathing [1722-24]

Jean-François de Troy - Diana and Her Nymphs Bathing [1722-24], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

In the Metamorphoses, the Roman poet Ovid described how nymphs bathed Diana, the goddess of the hunt, in a stream of clear water. Jean-François de Troy (Paris, 1679 - Rome, 1752) portrayed the moment after the bath when the nymphs are drying Diana's body and refastening her tunic. To the left, a nymph attempts to shield Diana's nudity from a lecherous satyr's sight. De Troy's choice of subject matter and the description of the women's flesh, creamy white with a pink blush tint, give this painting an erotic charge. The satyr, watching the scene voyeuristically from the side, becomes a stand-in for the viewer. De Troy used a warm palette of autumnal and pastel colours to describe the surrounding foliage and sky. Layers of glazes intensify the glowing tones. 

[Getty Centre, Los Angeles - Oil on canvas, 29.25 x 36.125 inches]

Unknown Italian Artist - La Gioconda or The Mona Lisa [1503-16]

Unknown Italian Artist - La Gioconda or The Mona Lisa [1503-16], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Until recently, this painting was considered one of the many existing versions of the famous painting by Leonardo da Vinci preserved in the Louvre. Technical examination and restoration carried out between 2011 and 2012 have shown that this is the earliest copy of the Mona Lisa - evidence of the activities of Leonardo’s workshop. The dimensions of both figures are identical and were perhaps traced from the same cartoon.

[Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid - Oil on walnut, 76.3 x 57 cm]

Manuel Arroyo y Lorenzo - The Duchess of Alençon Brought to Her Brother[1887]

Manuel Arroyo y Lorenzo - The Duchess of Alençon Brought to Her Brother [1887], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Margaret of Angouleme, in the centre of the composition, is approaching the bed on which lies her brother, Francis I, a prisoner in Madrid. Between them is the Emperor Charles V, who makes the introductions. The scene depicted is an interior, with various characters who remain attentive to events. It was presented at the National Exhibition of Fine Arts in 1887, where the artist obtained a third-class medal.

[Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid - Oil on canvas, 108 x 209 cm]

Peter Severin Krøyer - Interior of a Tavern [1886]

Peter Severin Krøyer - Interior of a Tavern [1886], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Peter Krøyer (Danish, 1851 - 1909) was a member of the Skagen School, a group of nineteenth-century painters who worked by the sea on the northern tip of Denmark every summer. He created this scene of fishermen gathered in a tavern in Skagen for John G. Johnson of Philadelphia, an eminent lawyer and avid art collector. Johnson, who rarely commissioned works from living artists, purchased a number of Scandinavian paintings with the assistance of Alexander Harrison, a Philadelphia-born marine painter who lived in Paris.

[Philadelphia Museum of Art - Oil on canvas, 85.7 x 114.3 cm]

Santiago Rusiñol - Interior of a Café [1892]

Santiago Rusiñol - Interior of a Café [1892], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

The artist and writer Rusiñol (1861 - 1931) was one of the founders of the turn-of-the-century Spanish Modernista movement. He and his colleagues, including the young Pablo Picasso, regularly met for lively discussions in a small Barcelona café. The figures populating the café in this painting, however, appear silent, solitary, and preoccupied with their own thoughts. The dull colours and enclosed space reinforce a sense of isolation.

[Philadelphia Museum of Art - Oil on canvas, 100.3 x 81.3 cm]

Alexandre-Évariste Fragonard - Burial of a Monk

Alexandre-Évariste Fragonard - Burial of a Monk, a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Alexandre-Évariste Fragonard (Grasse, October 26, 1780 – Paris, November 10, 1850) was a french painter and sculptor in the troubadour style. He received his first training from his father and drew from him his piquant subjects and great facility, perfecting them under David.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 72.7 x 91.1 cm]

Peter Paul Rubens - Head of Medusa [c.1617]

Peter Paul Rubens - Head of Medusa [c.1617], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna - Oil on canvas, 69 x 118 cm]

Paolo Uccello - Saint George and the Dragon [c.1470]

Paolo Uccello - Saint George and the Dragon [c.1470], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

This picture shows two episodes from the story of Saint George: his defeat of a plague-bearing dragon that had been terrorising a city; and the rescued princess bringing the dragon to heel (with her belt as a leash). In the sky, a storm is gathering. The eye of the storm lines up with Saint George's lance, suggesting that divine intervention has helped him to victory. Uccello (c.1397-1475) uses the lance to emphasise the angle from which Saint George attacks the dragon, helping to establish a three-dimensional space. The strange patches of grass illustrate Uccello's obsessive concern with linear perspective and his tendency to create decorative pattern.

[National Gallery, London - Oil on canvas, 55.6 x 74.2 cm]

Salomon van Ruysdael - A View of Rhenen seen from the West [1648]

Salomon van Ruysdael - A View of Rhenen seen from the West [1648], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

The river in the foreground is the Rhine. On the horizon is the town of Rhenen (Province of Utrecht) with the tower of Cunerakerk and the 'Koningshuis', the residence of Frederick V, King of Bohemia and Elector of the Palatinate and his wife, Maria Stuart. The diagonals formed by the river banks and the clouds are carefully balanced by the cattle and sail boat in the foreground. 

Van Ruysdael (1600/03 - 1670) painted Rhenen on two other occasions. The paintings are now in Los Angeles (Getty Museum) and Merion, Pennsylvania (Barnes Foundation Museum of Art). A prolific painter, Ruysdael specialised throughout his life in river and estuary scenes, of which the earliest dated example is of 1626. His earlier paintings, like van Goyen's, are modest in theme and restricted in colour, the later works becoming more elaborate.

[National Gallery, London - Oil on wood, 30.5 x 41.3 cm]

Amy Weiskopf - Still Life with a Clock [1986]

Amy Weiskopf - Still Life with a Clock [1986], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Amy Weiskopf was born in Chicago in 1957 and attended Washington University, St. Louis and Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia. She has been exhibiting her work regularly since 1978. Her meticulously crafted contemporary still lifes glow with energy and reflect her sound understanding of art history.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 49.8 x 69.9 cm]

Anne Goldthwaite - The Green Sofa [1930-40]

Anne Goldthwaite - The Green Sofa [1930-40], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Anne Goldthwaite (Montgomery, Alabama, 1869 - New York City, 1944) was an American artist and an advocate of women's rights and equal rights. From 1922 until 1944 she taught and took commissions from her residence in New York. Amongst her commissions was Woodrow Wilson. Every summer she would return to Montgomery where she was known for her pictures featuring African Americans.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 76.2 x 49.5 cm]