Martin Rico y Ortega - The Riva Degli Schiavoni in Venice [1873]

Martin Rico y Ortega - The Riva Degli Schiavoni in Venice [1873], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

The Riva Degli Schiavoni is a lovely and lively, albeit often overcrowded, promenade that sits on the waterfront at St. Mark's Basin in Venice. It was originally built in the 9th century from dredged silt and was named for the Slavic men who brought cargo to Venice from across the Adriatic Sea. 

The Riva Degli Schiavoni commences outside the Doges Palace and ends near the Arsenal. Along the way the promenade is lined with numerous hotels, restaurants, bars, and a number of notable historic buildings. Some of the hotels once functioned as palaces. For example, the Hotel Danieli used to be the Palazzo Dandolo, home to the aristocratic Dandolo family. Originally Byzantine in style, the palazzo includes a modern 1950s extension that was added when it was made a hotel.

[Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid - Oil on canvas, 42 x 72 cm]

Martin Rico y Ortega - Mouth of the Bidasoa River [1872]

Martin Rico y Ortega - Mouth of the Bidasoa River [1872], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

A serene landscape with the Bidasoa River's mouth at the Cantabrian Sea, as seen from the sands of Fuenterrabía. This landscape, along with sixteen other works, was presented by Rico at the Universal Exhibition of 1878 in Paris, where it was qualified as “spiritual, compositions that appear to have been made with drops of light on the end of the brush.” This work entered the Prado Museum as part of the legacy of Ramón de Errazu.

[Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid - Oil on canvas, 39.3 x 72 cm]

Peter Paul Rubens - Diana and Calisto [1638-40]

Peter Paul Rubens - Diana and Calisto [1638-40], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Calisto, one of the nymphs that accompany Diana the huntress, was seduced by Jupiter, thus breaking her vow of chastity. Rubens depicts the moment when the nymph, on the right, refuses to undress for her bath. Afraid the others will discover her pregnancy, she tries to keep the other nymphs from removing her clothing. On the left, attended by a slave, Diana reaches out to her in a gesture of affection and protection. The scene takes place at the edge of a forest, following a hunt whose trophies and weapons are still visible.

Rubens based this work on Ovid's Metamorphosis, giving the history a strong sensual and poetic content, especially in his treatment of the evening light. Those are characteristics of his final period, when his compositions were quite still, abandoning the strong diagonals and disequilibria of his earlier works. The landscape appears to have been painted by Lucas van Uden, who occasionally collaborated with Rubens.

The influence of Titian's mythological paintings is clear in this work, but Rubens is much more understanding and indulgent in his depiction of the nymph's error. This work was at Madrid's Alcázar Palace in 1666.

[Museo Nacional del Prado - Oil on canvas, 202.6 x 325.5 cm]

Peter Paul Rubens - The Judgement of Paris [1638-39]

Peter Paul Rubens - The Judgement of Paris [1638-39], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

The shepherd, Paris, was called on to resolve Minerva, Venus and Juno's argument as to which of them was the most beautiful goddess of all. Paris, son of Priam, was to give a golden apple with the inscription “to the most beautiful” to the one he considered most deserving. The shepherd sits under a tree, thinking, while the Gods' messenger, Mercury, brings the golden fruit of discord. The goddesses attempt to sway his judgment with their offerings: Minerva, with armour and an owl, announces his success at war; Venus, accompanied by Cupid, offers him the most beautiful woman; and Juno, identified by her peacock, promises him grandeur. He finally chooses Venus, with whose help he kidnaps Helen, provoking the Trojan War and the wrath of the other goddesses, as is told in Homer's Iliad.

Rubens painted this work at the end of his life, modeling Venus after his second wife, Hélène Fourment. It is thought that the landscape was painted by Lucas van Uden. The Cardinal Infante commissioned this work for Felipe IV and by 1653 it was hanging in the Buen Retiro Palace.

[Museo Nacional del Prado - Oil on canvas, 199 x 381 cm]

Unknown Artist - Satire on Celibacy [c.1600-49]

Unknown Artist - Satire on Celibacy [c.1600-49], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam - Oil on panel, 29.7 x 41.5 cm]

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo - Sagrada Familia del Pajarito [c.1650]

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo - Sagrada Familia del Pajarito [c.1650], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid - Oil on canvas, 144 x 188 cm]

Ignacio Pinazo Camerlench - Female Nude [1902]

Ignacio Pinazo Camerlench - Female Nude [1902], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

This portrait of a nude young woman sitting in an armchair with her clothing falling to her feet and a certain gesture of modesty betrays the artist's satisfaction with the subject of nudes and the sensuality of the female body. The colouring tends towards reds and yellows and is one of the singular elements of this nude, which is one of several painted by Pinazo. Here, the amount of paint seems to build the model's body with very dense and paint-laden brushstrokes that distinguish it from the background. This work was acquired for the Museum of Modern Art in 1957, along with other paintings by the same artist.

[Museo Nacional del Prado - Oil on wood, 31 x 20 cm]

Ignacio Pinazo Camarlench - Nude [1888]

Ignacio Pinazo Camarlench - Nude [1888], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

A young man lies face down on the earth, crowned with grape leaves in the fashion of the god, Bacchus. This mythological touch, which Pinazo developed in part of his oeuvre, shows the influence of his time in Italy. This nude also clearly shows how important light was in many of this artist's works. Here it can be seen in the reverberant effect of the white cloth that cover's the model's legs. This work is one of several works by this artist acquired for the Museum of Modern Art in 1957.

[Museo Nacional del Prado - Oil on wood, 105 x 185 cm]

Bernardo Bellotto - Neumarkt in Dresden [1747]

Bernardo Bellotto - Neumarkt in Dresden [1747], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Bellotto created a series of views of Dresden and Pirna for Count Heinrich von Bruhl, minister to the court of the Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, Augustus III. Consisting of 15 paintings altogether, the whole series was acquired in 1768, with the rest of Bruhl's collection, by the Russian Empress Catherine II. Ten canvases are still to be found in the Hermitage. The somewhat dry manner of execution is balanced by the perfect precision with which the architecture is conveyed. To the left we see the building which then housed the picture gallery, and in the centre, in the depths of the painting, is the Church of the Virgin, and in front of it the court stables, destroyed in 1760 during the siege of Dresden by Prussian troops.

[Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg - Oil on canvas, 134.5 x 236.5 cm]

Eugène Boudin - Deauville, the Terrace [1882]

Eugène Boudin - Deauville, the Terrace [1882], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Philadelphia Museum of Art - Oil on canvas, 36.8 x 58.1 cm]

Jan Steen - The Lovesick Maiden [c.1660]

Jan Steen - The Lovesick Maiden [c.1660], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Doctors were familiar targets of parody in Steen's native Leiden, the home of a famous medical school. Borrowing from the comic stage, Steen identifies the old man as a quack by his peculiar clothing, while the nature of the young lady's malady is suggested by the Cupid over the door, and other intimations like the open bed.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 86.4 x 99.1 cm]

Jacob Ochtervelt - The Love Letter [early 1670s]

Jacob Ochtervelt - The Love Letter [early 1670s], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Ochtervelt (Dutch, Rotterdam, 1634 - Amsterdam, 1682) was a co-pupil of Pieter de Hooch under Nicolaas Bercham in Haarlem. He worked in his native Rotterdam from about 1655 to 1674, and then moved to Amsterdam. This typical scene of elegant domestic life was painted around 1670, when Ochtervelt was strongly influenced by Gerard ter Borch.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art - Oil on canvas, 91.4 x 63.5 cm]

Theodor Rombouts - Card Players [c.1627]

Theodor Rombouts - Card Players [c.1627], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Museo Nacional del Prado - Oil on canvas, 100 x 223 cm]

Theodor Rombouts - The Charlatan [1620-25]

Theodor Rombouts - The Charlatan [1620-25], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Museo Nacional del Prado - Oil on canvas, 118 x 223 cm]

Vincent Desiderio - Sleeping Family [1990]

Vincent Desiderio - Sleeping Family [1990], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Vincent Desiderio (born Philadelphia, 1955) is an American realist painter.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 163.8 x 213.4 cm]

Zoey Frank - White Jacket

Zoey Frank - White Jacket, a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

See: www.zoeyfrank.com/paintings/still-life/white-jacket

[Oil on linen, 22 x 30 inches]

Francisco Pradilla y Ortiz - Baptismal Procession of Prince Juan through the Streets of Seville [1910]

Francisco Pradilla y Ortiz - Baptismal Procession of Prince Juan through the Streets of Seville [1910], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

This painting depicts the baptism of Prince Juan. It is based on the description of that event from Historia de los Reyes Católicos (History of the Catholic Kings) by Andrés Bernáldez, published in 1856. The documentary rigour of this text is transferred to the canvas, so we can speak here of the archeological veracity with which Pradilla reconstructed that historical event.

The refined drawing is combined with the use of rich and brilliant colours. The scene is nuanced by a strong light that leaves broad areas of the canvas in shadows, creating a certain degree of visual sensationalism.

This is one of the artist's last history paintings and was made late in his career, when his taste for anecdote and ornamentation took precedence over the gravity of the even being represented. The monumental figures of his youth give way, in this work, to a greater wealth of decoration, with the presence of numerous secondary figures.

[Museo Nacional del Prado - Oil on canvas, 193 x 403 cm]

Francisco Pradilla y Ortiz - Queen Juana Confined at Tordesillas with Her Daughter [1906]

Francisco Pradilla y Ortiz - Queen Juana Confined at Tordesillas with Her Daughter [1906], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

In keeping with his interest in Queen Juana, Pradilla painted this painting of the queen's confinement in Tordesillas Castle, where she spent the rest of her life alongside the cadaver of her husband. Juana sits besides a window in a palace room with a Gothic fireplace. Lost in thought, she gazes at the viewer without noticing her daughter's play. A lady in waiting and a servant on the right contemplate the scene with some sadness. An open door in the background offers a view of the coffin with the body of Felipe “el Hermoso.”

Pradilla abandoned the grandiloquence of enormous history paintings from earlier decades in order to make a small cabinet painting. The studied setting, archeological and historical knowledge used here with a certain eclecticism of clothing and furnishings, are combined with a finished and very polished technique. Those aspects prevent this work from being considered a sketch for a larger painting on the same subject, making this a magnificent example of Pradilla's new pictorial tendencies with regard to history paintings: small format works.

[Museo Nacional del Prado - Oil on canvas, 85 x 146 cm]

Joseph Mallord William Turner - Caligua’s Palace and Bridge [c.1831]

Joseph Mallord William Turner - Caligua’s Palace and Bridge [c.1831], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

The subject of this painting is an episode from Suetonius’s Life of the Emperor Caligula. Confounding a prediction that he would no more become emperor than ride across the Gulf of Baiae with horses, Caligula constructed an artificial floating bridge of boats which he then crossed with a chariot. Following popular accounts, Turner has depicted the bridge as a solid construction. It has, however, like the adjacent palace, fallen into ruin and decay. 

The picture was widely admired in 1831. The Times described it as ‘one of the most beautiful and magnificent landscapes that ever mind conceived or pencil drew’.

[Tate Gallery, London - Oil on canvas, 1372 x 2463 mm]

Samuel Scott - The Building of Westminster Bridge [c.1740s]

Samuel Scott - The Building of Westminster Bridge [c.1740s], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

To the left in this view of London and the Thames River is the still unfinished Westminster Bridge. Behind it from left to right are Saint Johns, Smith Square, Westminster Hall, Westminster Abbey, and the tower of Saint Margaret's church. Work on Westminster Bridge began in 1738 and was completed in 1750. It is shown here in approximately the state it would have reached by 1742.

The canvas also shows a rehearsal of the water-borne procession of a newly elected Lord Mayor of London to Westminster Hall. The barge bears the arms of the Ironmongers Company, and the picture must therefore refer to the election as Lord Mayor of Sir Joseph Pennant, Alderman of the Ironmongers Company, in 1749. Five variants of the composition are known.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 61 x 112.7 cm]

Antonio Muñoz Degrain - Lovers of Teruel [1884]

Antonio Muñoz Degrain - Lovers of Teruel [1884], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Dying of love is a theme often drawn from legendary literature, and was recurrent in nineteenth-century Spanish painting. Beginning with the story Juan Yagüe found in the Archives of the Moot Halls of Teruel, Degrain depicts the impossible love between Isabel Segura and the impoverished nobleman, Diego de Marsilla, which occurred in 1212. The painter chooses the tragic outcome of the two lover's passion: in the dark interior of the church of San Pedro in Teruel, the body of Diego de Marsilla lies wrapped in his warrior's garb. It rests on a casket covered with roses and laurels in homage to his triumphs as a knight. On his chest rests the head of his beloved, who has just breathed her last breath after kissing the lips of her eternal and impossible love.

The modern manner in which the paint is applied allows the artist to achieve great expressivity. This, and the exciting colours and powerful Mediterranean light are the work's most striking elements. The balanced composition and the adaptation of the figures to the space reveal Degrain's highly correct academicism. This work was acquired for the Prado Museum in 1884 and was later sent to the Museum of Modern Art.

[Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid - Oil on canvas, 330 x 516 cm]

Antonio Muñoz Degrain - Before The Wedding [1882]

Antonio Muñoz Degrain - Before The Wedding [1882], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

A very beautiful study of Isabel de Segura, the protagonist of the nineteenth-century legend of The Lovers of Teruel, which was dramatised in verse by Hartzenbusch. The bride, prepared to marry Rodrigo de Azara, the spouse her father chose for her, wears an expression of profound sadness and desperation at not being able to marry her true love, Diego de Marsilla.

The modernity of Muñoz Degrain's art is especially notable in this work, where the detailed rendering of Isabel's figure contrasts with the loose and faded brushstrokes of the background. Indeed, it is barely possible to make out the silhouettes of the tapestries that decorate the walls, and the jewelry box and vase on the table to the right. This technique comes directly from the artist's admiration of sixteenth-century Venetian painting, in which the purely pictorial quality of the work, its exuberance and colour, are given more importance than the linearity of drawing.

The Prado also has another work by Muñoz Degrain related to the subject of The Lovers of Teruel. The latter was painted in 1884 and presented alongside the present work at the National Exhibition of 1884.

[Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid - Oil on canvas, 119 x 93 cm]

Johannes Vermeer - The Milkmaid [c.1660]

Johannes Vermeer - The Milkmaid [c.1660], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Vermeer's painting is understated, although the use of symbols remains: one of the Delft tiles at the foot of the wall behind the maid, near the foot warmer, depicts Cupid, which can imply arousal of a woman or simply that while she is working she is daydreaming about a man. Other amorous symbols in the painting include a wide-mouthed jug, often used as a symbol of the female anatomy. The foot warmer was often used by artists as a symbol for female sexual arousal because, when placed under a skirt, it heats the whole body below the waist. The coals enclosed inside the foot warmer could symbolise "either the heat of lust in tavern or brothel scenes, or the hidden but true burning passion of a woman for her husband", according to Serena Cant, a British art historian and lecturer. Yet the whitewashed wall and presence of milk seem to indicate that the room was a "cool kitchen" used for cooking with dairy products, such as milk and butter, so the foot warmer would have a pragmatic purpose there. Since other Dutch paintings of the period indicate that foot warmers were used when seated, its presence in the picture may symbolise the standing woman's "hardworking nature", according to Cant.

[Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam - Oil on canvas, 45.5 x 41 cm]

Édouard Manet - A Matador [1866-67]

Édouard Manet - A Matador [1866-67], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

After painting pictures inspired by the Spanish masters of the seventeenth century for six years, Manet finally took a trip to Spain in September 1865. He attended a bullfight on Sunday, September 3, 1865; one of the toreros was the illustrious Cayetano Sanz y Pozas (1821–1890). Only recently has Sanz been recognised in this, the first of the full-length figure paintings Manet completed after he studied the works of Velázquez in the Museo del Prado in Madrid. He painted the picture in Paris. Unlike all of Manet's previous depictions of matadors, this bullfighter carries a red cape.

Manet exhibited this painting, along with some twenty others on Spanish themes, at the solo exhibition he organised in a private pavilion adjacent to the 1867 Exposition Universelle in Paris. Théodore Duret, the writer who accompanied Manet to the Prado and probably also to the bullfight, bought this painting from the artist in 1870.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 171.1 x 113 cm]

Charles-Francois Daubigny - Landscape with Cattle by a Stream [1872]

Charles-Francois Daubigny - Landscape with Cattle by a Stream [1872], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

This painting has in the past been titled Cattle Grazing, Sunset, and has been identified as a scene on the banks of the river Cure in the Morvan region of Burgundy, eastern France.

[National Gallery, London - Oil on wood, 35.6 x 66 cm]

Cornelis van Poelenburgh - Landscape with Bathing Nudes [mid-1600s]

Cornelis van Poelenburgh - Landscape with Bathing Nudes [mid-1600s], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

A sense of uninhibited freedom pervades the scene as a group of women bathe, lounge, and socialise in an area below a rocky hillside. Drying herself, the woman in the centre of the painting turns toward her voluptuous nude companion lying in the foreground. Cornelius van Poelenburgh (Utrecht, c.1586 - Utrecht, 1667) softly modeled the figures, evoking the texture of tender flesh. The landscape captures the atmospheric qualities of the Italian countryside and deliberately calls to mind an idyllic mythological land filled with languid nymphs. 

Van Poelenburgh was best known for cabinet-size paintings, small easel paintings intended to be viewed at close range. Like this one, many were painted on copper and represented ruins, shepherds, peasants, travellers, and an occasional mythological or religious scene. 

[Getty Centre, Los Angeles - Oil on copper, 13 x 17.375 inches]

Georges Braque - Nature Morte [c.1930]

Georges Braque - Nature Morte [c.1930], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Christie’s Auctions - Pastel on paper laid down on board, 23 x 47 cm]

Paul Klee - Adam and Little Eve [1921]

Paul Klee - Adam and Little Eve [1921], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

In this watercolour, Klee somewhat expanded the story of the creation of man. His Eve, after growing from Adam's rib, stays right there. She also remains a child. Evchen (Little Eve) looks like a schoolgirl with flaxen hair tied in a braid. Adam is a broad-faced, grown man who sports earrings and a mustache. By placing the figures against a shallow ground with a reddish curtain, Klee seems to set the oddly matched pair on a puppet-theater stage.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Watercolour and transferred printing ink on paper, 31.4 x 21.9 cm]

Ivan Shishkin - Morning in a Pine Forest [1889]

Ivan Shishkin - Morning in a Pine Forest [1889], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow - Oil on canvas, 139 x 213 cm]

Constant Troyon - On the Way to the Market [1859]

Constant Troyon - On the Way to the Market [1859], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg - Oil on canvas, 260.5 x 211 cm]

William Bouguereau - The Birth of Venus [1879]

William Bouguereau - The Birth of Venus [1879], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Musée d’Orsay, Paris - Oil on canvas, 300 x 215 cm]

William Bouguereau - Le Guepier [1892]

William Bouguereau - Le Guepier [1892], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Private Collection - Oil on canvas, 213 x 152.5 cm]

Mary Cassatt - Woman Bathing [1890-91]

Mary Cassatt - Woman Bathing [1890-91], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

The American painter and printmaker Mary Cassatt spent her professional life in Paris, where she was a member of the Impressionist group. La Toilette belongs to a group of ten color prints that Cassatt showed at her first independent exhibition (at the Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris) in 1891. The abstract, linear quality of the nude's back drew the attention of Cassatt's colleague and sometime collaborator, Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas (1834-1917), who exclaimed, "I do not admit that a woman can draw like that."

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Drypoint and aquatint, printed in colour from three plates, 36.4 x 26.8 cm]

Bernardo Bellotto - View of Pirna from the Sonnenstein Castle [1750s]

Bernardo Bellotto - View of Pirna from the Sonnenstein Castle [1750s], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg - Oil on canvas, 136 x 237 cm]

Francis Blackwell Mayer - Old Annapolis, Francis Street [1876]

Francis Blackwell Mayer - Old Annapolis, Francis Street [1876], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 40.1 x 52.1 cm]

Alfred Wordsworth Thompson - Old Bruton Church, Williamsburg, Virginia, in the Time of Lord Dunmore [1893]

Alfred Wordsworth Thompson - Old Bruton Church, Williamsburg, Virginia, in the Time of Lord Dunmore [1893], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

History painter Alfred Wordsworth Thompson (Baltimore, Maryland, 1840 - Summit, New Jersey, 1896) studied at Newton University. By the time of the Civil War, Thompson was an artist for the Illustrated London News and Harper's Weekly, interested in events in Virginia. But his interest was apparently not very strong, for, in 1861, he went to Paris to study art, eventually at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in 1864, exhibiting at the Salon of 1865.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 45.7 x 68.9 cm]

Peter Paul Rubens - Lamentation over the Dead Christ [1614]

Peter Paul Rubens - Lamentation over the Dead Christ [1614], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna - Oil on canvas, 150 x 204 cm]

Peter Paul Rubens - Finding Baby Eriktoniya [1616]

Peter Paul Rubens - Finding Baby Eriktoniya [1616], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna - Oil on canvas, 218 x 317 cm]

Frank Myers Boggs - On the Thames [1883]

Frank Myers Boggs - On the Thames [1883], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 98.4 x 130.8 cm]

Frank Myers Boggs - Paris Street Scene [1893]

Frank Myers Boggs - Paris Street Scene [1893], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 118.1 x 146.7 cm]

José Moreno Carbonero - Prince Don Carlos of Viana [1881]

José Moreno Carbonero - Prince Don Carlos of Viana [1881], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

José Moreno Carbonero (Malaga, March 28, 1860 - Madrid, April 15, 1942) was a Spanish painter. 

[Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid - Oil on canvas, 310 x 242 cm]

José Moreno Carbonero - The Conversion of the Duke of Gandia [1884]

José Moreno Carbonero - The Conversion of the Duke of Gandia [1884], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

The contemplation of the corpse of the Empress Elizabeth of Portugal, wife of Charles V, produced a profoundly chilling effect on Francis Borgia, Duke of Gandia, who collapses against one of his knights. The melodramatic vision with which the painter approached the scene is reinforced by the attitudes of other characters, as the desolate lady covers her face with her hands. The whiteness of the coffin, burial clothes and coffin capture the light entering from the left, leaving the background darkened. 

[Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid - Oil on canvas, 315 x 500 cm]

Albert Edelfelt - Male Model [1873]

Albert Edelfelt - Male Model [1873], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Albert Edelfelt (Porvoo, July 21, 1854 - August 18, 1905) was a Swedish-speaking Finnish painter. Edelfelt was one of the first Finnish artists to achieve international fame. He enjoyed considerable success in Paris and was one of the founders of the Realist art movement in Finland. He influenced several younger Finnish painters and helped fellow Finnish artists to make their breakthrough in Paris.

[Bukowski’s Autumn Classic Sale - Oil on paper laid on canvas, 91.5 x 72 cm]

Maria Wiik - Innocentia [1900]

Maria Wiik - Innocentia [1900], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Maria Wiik (Helsinki, August 2, 1853 - June 19, 1928) was a Finnish painter.

[Bukowski’s Autumn Classic Sale - Oil on canvas, 62.5 x 46.5 cm]

Bernardo Bellotto - Pirna, the Obertor from the South

Bernardo Bellotto - Pirna, the Obertor from the South, a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

The nephew of Canaletto, by whom he was trained, Bellotto (Italian, 1722 - 1780) became a view painter of international renown. Between 1747 and 1758, he worked for the court of Dresden and this picture shows the nearby village of Pirna.

Between 1753 and 1756 Bellotto painted canvases representing Pirna with the Obertor for Elector Frederick Augustus II of Saxony and for his prime minister, Count Brühl. This reduced replica was commissioned by a private patron either concurrently or in the late 1760s.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 46.4 x 78.1 cm]

Canaletto - Piazza San Marco [late 1720s]

Canaletto - Piazza San Marco [late 1720s], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

The most famous view painter of eighteenth-century Venice, Canaletto was particularly popular with British visitors to the city. This wonderfully fresh and well preserved canvas shows the square of San Marco. The windows of the bell tower are fewer in number than in actuality, and the flagstaffs are too tall, but otherwise Canaletto took few liberties with the topography. The loose, ragged handling and high key suggest a date in the late 1720s.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 68.6 x 112.4 cm]

Hendrik Goltzius - Sleeping Danae Being Prepared to Receive Jupiter [1603]

Hendrik Goltzius - Sleeping Danae Being Prepared to Receive Jupiter [1603], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Inspired by the sensuous nudes of the Venetian painter Titian, Hendrik Goltzius (Dutch, 1558 – 1617) seduces the viewer with Danae’s glowing flesh and the overall warm tonality of the painting. Jupiter’s eagle, having spied Danae, casts a lightning bolt that turns into gold coins. The laughter and sexual allusions of the putti and Mercury, the god of commerce and financial gain, as well as patron of the artist, confirm the themes of sex and money.

[Los Angeles County Museum of Art - Oil on canvas, 173.3 x 200 cm]

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec - The Sofa [c.1894-96]

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec - The Sofa [c.1894-96], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

An inveterate chronicler of the colourful and tawdry nightlife of fin-de-siècle Montmartre, Lautrec set out to document the lives of prostitutes in a series of pictures made between 1892 and 1896. In creating these uninhibited works, he seems to have been influenced by Degas's monotypes of brothel scenes and by erotic Japanese Shunga prints. Lautrec was no stranger to the world-weary ‘filles de maison’ whose companionship he sought and whose habits he observed on his nightly rounds. Critical of stiff and lifeless models, he appreciated the naturalness of prostitutes "who stretch themselves out on the divans . . . entirely without pretensions." At first Lautrec made sketches in the brothels, but he was apparently hampered by insufficient lighting and had the prostitutes pose in his studio.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on cardboard, 62.9 x 81 cm]

Camille Corot - River with a Distant Tower [1865]

Camille Corot - River with a Distant Tower [1865], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

The writer Théophile Thoré repeated his habitual criticism of Corot in 1865, the date of this picture: "Corot almost never made anything besides the same one landscape, but it is good." The landscape here was created by Corot in his studio from stock elements that he knew by heart: the cluster of silvery trees, the body of leaden water, the peasant figures and boatman, the distant tower. Like his idol Claude Lorrain, Corot could generate a landscape and a mood through the power of his imagination.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 54.6 x 78.4 cm]

Vasili Levi - River Landscape [1950]

Vasili Levi - River Landscape [1950], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Vasili Levi (Kharkiv, September 17, 1878 - 1954) was a Russian painter.

[Bukowski’s Auctions, Helsinki - Oil on board, 32 x 50 cm]