Charles-Émile Jacque - Sheep Leaving a Farmyard [1860]

Charles-Émile Jacque - Sheep Leaving a Farmyard [1860], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Charles-Émile Jacque (May 23, 1813 - May 7, 1894) was a French painter of animals. Fleeing the cholera epidemics that besieged Paris in the mid-nineteenth century, Charles Jacque relocated to Barbizon in 1849 with Millet. There, he painted rustic or pastoral subject matter: shepherds, flocks of sheep, pigs, and scenes of farm life. In addition to painting, Jacque was also famous for his etchings and engravings.

[Philadelphia Museum of Art, oil on panel, 55.2 x 71.9 cm]

Anton Mauve - Shepherdess with Flock of Sheep [c.1870-88]

Anton Mauve - Shepherdess with Flock of Sheep [c.1870-88], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Anton Mauve (Zaandam, September 18, 1838 - Amhem, February 5, 1888) was a Dutch realist painter. Most of Mauve's work depicts people and animals in outdoor settings. His best known paintings depict peasants working in the fields. His paintings of flocks of sheep were especially popular with American patrons, so popular indeed that a price differential developed between scenes of "sheep coming" and "sheep going."

[Rijksmuseum - Oil on canvas, 54 x 82 cm]

Han van Meegeren - Woman Reading a Letter [1935-40]

Han van Meegeren - Woman Reading a Letter [1935-40], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Han van Meegeren (Deventer, October 10, 1889 - Amsterdam, December 30, 1947) was a Dutch painter and is considered to be one of the most ingenious art forgers of the 20th century. When art critics decried his work as tired and derivative, van Meegeren felt that they had destroyed his career. Thereupon, he decided to prove his talent to the critics by forging paintings of some of the world's most famous artists, including Frans Hals, Pieter de Hooch, Gerard ter Borch and Johannes Vermeer. He so well replicated the styles and colours of the artists that the best art critics and experts of the time regarded his paintings as genuine and sometimes exquisite. His most successful forgery was Supper at Emmaus, created in 1937 while living in the south of France. This painting was hailed by some of the world’s foremost art experts as the finest Vermeer they had ever seen.

[Rijksmuseum - Oil on canvas, 58.5 x 57 cm]

Johannes Vermeer - Young Woman with a Water Pitcher [c.1662]

Johannes Vermeer - Young Woman with a Water Pitcher [c.1662], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

This well-preserved picture of the early to mid-1660s is characteristic of Vermeer's mature style. Notwithstanding his remarkable interest in optical effects, the artist achieved a quiet balance of primary colours and simple shapes through subtle calculation and some revision during the execution of the work. The composition suits the theme of domestic tranquility, underscored by the basin and pitcher, traditional symbols of purity. This canvas was the first of thirteen paintings by Vermeer to enter the United States between 1887 and 1919.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art - Oil on canvas, 45.7 x 40.6 cm]

Auguste Renoir - Young Girl Bathing [1892]

Auguste Renoir - Young Girl Bathing [1892], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Pierre Auguste Renoir painted a great many canvases of single bathers in outdoor settings, timeless studies of fulsome young women. The picture is thinly painted, its brushwork soft and supple. Renoir probably posed his model in the studio, since the rapidly brushed landscape background is far more imaginary than real. Claude Monet first owned this painting, and remarked to a friend that while the nude was beautiful, the landscape was conventional. Renoir clearly concentrates his brush on the undulating physiognomy of his innocent auburn-haired model.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art - Oil on canvas, 81.3 x 64.8 cm]

Edgar Degas - The Dancing Class [c.1870]

Edgar Degas - The Dancing Class [c.1870], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

This is the very first of Degas's innumerable scenes of ballet dancers going through their paces in the studios and rehearsal rooms of the Paris Opéra. Late in his life, when he looked again at these early pictures, Degas lamented that he no longer had the eyes for such exacting work. When he painted this small picture, for which there are many large study drawings, he did not yet have privileges to go backstage at the Opéra, then on the rue Le Peletier. In the late 1870s, Degas explained, "I have done [painted] so many of these dance examinations without having seen them that I am a little ashamed of it."

The dancer at the centre of the composition is Joséphine Gaujelin (or Gozelin), whom Degas also portrayed in a stunning portrait (Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston). Here, she awaits the starting note from the ballet master. The watering can, the top hat as music holder, and the empty violin case are accessories that the artist would continue to use to enliven his ballet pictures. Similarly, the poses that Degas established here would recur in his work until the end of his life.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art - Oil on wood, 19.7 x 27 cm]

Winslow Homer - The Life Line [1884]

Winslow Homer - The Life Line [1884], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

The dramatic rescue from a foundering ship shown here was made possible by a recent innovation in lifesaving technology, the breeches buoy. Secured firmly to ship and shore, the device permitted the transfer of stranded passengers to safety by means of a pulley that was hauled back and forth by crews at either end. Cropped down to its essentials, Homer's composition thrusts us into the midst of the action with massive waves rolling past, drenching the semiconscious woman and her anonymous savior. The Life Line was immediately recognised by critics as a major contribution to American art, portraying a heroic, contemporary subject with both painterly virtuosity and detailed observation.

[Philadelphia Museum of Art - Oil on canvas, 72.7 x 113.7 cm]