Elihu Vedder - The Pleiades [1885]

Elihu Vedder - The Pleiades [1885], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Oil on canvas, 61.3 x 95.6 cm]

F. Luis Mora - Flowers of the Field [1913]

F. Luis Mora - Flowers of the Field [1913], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

F. Luis Mora, also known as Francis Luis Mora (Montevideo, July 27, 1874 - New York, June 5, 1940), was an Hispanic American figural painter. Mora worked in watercolour, oils and tempera. He produced drawings in pen and ink, and graphite; and etchings and monotypes. He is known for his paintings and drawings depicting American life in the early 20th century; Spanish life and society; historical and allegorical subjects; with murals, easel painting and illustrations. He also was a popular art instructor.

[Oil on canvas, 101.6 x 91.4 cm]

Edwin Austin Abbey - King Lear, Act I, Scene I [1898]

Edwin Austin Abbey - King Lear, Act I, Scene I [1898], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Oil on canvas, 137.8 x 323.2 cm]

Edgar Degas - The Dance Class [1874]

Edgar Degas - The Dance Class [1874], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

When this work and its variant in the Musée d'Orsay, Paris, were painted in the mid-1870s, they constituted Degas's most ambitious figural compositions except for history paintings. Some twenty-four women, ballerinas and their mothers, wait while a dancer executes an attitude for her examination. Jules Perrot, one of the best-known dancers and ballet masters in Europe, conducts the class. The imaginary scene is set in a rehearsal room in the old Paris Opéra, a poster for Rossini's Guillaume Tell is on the wall beside the mirror, even though the building had just burned to the ground. 

The painting was commissioned in 1872 as part of an arrangement between Degas and the singer and collector Jean-Baptiste Faure. It was one of only a few commissions that the artist ever accepted, and the painting was delivered in November 1874 after two years of intermittent work.

[Oil on canvas, 83.5 x 77.2 cm]

Unknown Dutch (Utrecht Caravaggist) Painter - Two Musicians [17thcentury]

Unknown Dutch (Utrecht Caravaggist) Painter - Two Musicians [17th century], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Oil on canvas, 99 x 123.5 cm]

Cornelis Bisschop - Young Woman and a Cavalier [early 1660s]

Cornelis Bisschop - Young Woman and a Cavalier [early 1660s], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

The picture is in good condition, although there are many small retouches over the entire surface. The glazes have been abraded in the red bodice of the woman especially, and to some extent in her face; the right contour of her head has been reinforced. The background is somewhat obscured by varnish. The painting's carved and gilded frame is remarkable, and possibly original to the picture. The canvas is unusually close to square in format, and neither it nor the frame has been cut down, suggesting that Bisschop (1630 - 1674) himself may have put them together.

[Oil on canvas, 97.8 x 88.3 cm]

Claude Monet - Houses on the Achterzaan [1871]

Claude Monet - Houses on the Achterzaan [1871], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

This light-filled, en plein air scene is one of twenty-four landscapes that Monet painted during his sojourn in the Netherlands in 1871. Painted near the village of Zaandam, the Achterzaan river occupies the foreground of the painting while windmills and industrial buildings can be seen in the distant background. The water reflects the multi-coloured houses and willow trees that line the river bank as well as a white sail boat that floats along the water. A woman dressed in a white diaphanous gown stands beneath a willow tree on the left, gazing by the water. 

Employing a distinctly blonde colour palette reminiscent of that used by landscape painter Corot, Monet renders this scene with attention to atmospheric detail and palpable light. This painting also evokes a sense of leisure and pastoral beauty typical of Dutch seventeenth century paintings that Monet would have seen during his stay in Holland. The artist’s colour palette, portrayal of leisurely pursuits, and increasing attention to the surface of the canvas, all practices that Monet explored during his stay in Holland, were significant and influential in the development of his increasingly modern approach to painting.

Monet postdated this work, marking the canvas in his studio in the year after it was painted. The fact that Monet held on to the canvas for many years after he completed it contributes to the pristine condition of the unlined, unvarnished painting.

[Oil on canvas, 45.7 x 67 cm]