Anders Zorn - Portrait of Franz Heiss [1902]

Anders Zorn - Portrait of Franz Heiss [1902], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Oil on canvas, 81 x 61.5 cm]

Niels Larsen Stevns - Wedding at Cana

Niels Larsen Stevns - Wedding at Cana, a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Niels Larsen Stevns (Gevno, July 9, 1864 - Copenhagen, September 27, 1941) was a Danish painter and sculptor.

Camille Corot - View of Lormes Early [1840s]

Camille Corot - View of Lormes Early [1840s], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

This rapidly executed sketch, made outdoors, is one of several views of the countryside and villages in the Morvan, a mountainous region south of Paris, that Corot painted in the early 1840s.

[Oil on canvas, 16.5 x 54.9 cm]

Frederic Bazille - Edmond Maitre [1869]

Frederic Bazille - Edmond Maitre [1869], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Oil on canvas, 83.2 x 64 cm]

Raphael - Bindo Altoviti [c.1515]

Raphael - Bindo Altoviti [c.1515], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

This arresting image was thought in the nineteenth century to be a Raphael self-portrait. However, we know today that this handsome young man was Bindo Altoviti, a wealthy Florentine banker and friend of the artist in Rome.

He turns in a dramatic, almost theatrical, way to fix the eye of the viewer. Perhaps one viewer in particular was meant to receive his captivating look: Bindo's wife Fiammetta Soderini. Renaissance poets and courtiers were unanimous in believing that a person first fell in love through the eyes. They were called the "guides of love," which could "reveal the passion within more effectively than the tongue itself, or letter, or messengers." Bindo's flushed cheeks contribute to the impression of passion, and a ring is prominent on the hand he holds above his heart. The robe slipping from his shoulder reveals a bare nape caressed by soft curls. Their golden colour would have underscored the nobility and purity of his love.

Bindo and Fiammetta, daughter of a prominent Florentine family, were married in 1511, when Bindo would have been about twenty. The couple had six children, but Fiammetta continued to live in Florence while Bindo's business with the papal court required his presence in Rome. This portrait, which apparently hung in the couple's home in Florence, would have provided Fiammetta with a vivid reminder of her absent husband. It remained in the Altoviti family for nearly three hundred years.

[Oil on panel, 59.7 x 43.8 cm]

Nicolas Regnier - The Divine Inspiration of Music [c.1640]

Nicolas Regnier - The Divine Inspiration of Music [c.1640], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Nicolas Regnier (Maubeuge, 1591 – Venice, 1667) was a Flemish painter and art collector, active in Italy during the Baroque period.

[Oil on canvas, 120 x 198.1 cm]

Ivon Hitchens - Algerian Woman No. 1 [c.1949]

Ivon Hitchens - Algerian Woman No. 1 [c.1949], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

In November 1950, Ivon Hitchens (London, 1893 - Petworth, 1979) exhibited twenty-seven paintings, all nudes, at the Leicester Galleries in London. Wyndham Lewis, who reviewed the exhibition for the Listener wrote: ‘When an artist has evolved a manner so intensely personal that a picture of his can be recognized a half-a-mile away, and has for a number of years remained pretty stationary, it is most unusual for him to break the spell and open up on us with a new line. Yet this is what has happened at the Leicester Galleries where Ivon Hitchins has broken out of his brown web and revealed to our astonished gaze a large recumbent nude female. What is one to say, except congratulate him on this comely girl, and wait to see what is going to happen next?’ 

[Oil on canvas, 53.3 x 94 cm]