Jacob Jordaens - Meleager and Atalanta [1620-50]

Jacob Jordaens - Meleager and Atalanta [1620-50], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

After killing the wild boar that was ravaging the kingdom of Calydon, Meleager offered its head to Atalanta, of whom he was enamoured. But the hunter's uncles considered themselves the rightful recipients of that trophy. They took it from her, provoking such rage in Meleagrus that he killed them.

Jordaens places the figure in the foreground like a long running frieze. In the group on the right, Meleager's hand moves to his sword, ready to begin the attack on his own uncles, while Atalanta, with an expression of fear, tries to stop him. On the left, the group of hunters marks the composition's rhythm. Their weapons, an arm and the movement of their dogs draw the viewer's gaze toward the main event. The two parts of the painting were made separately. First, Jordaens painted the group on the right, and their characteristics belong to his youth, when his works were dominated by forceful and monumental figures in the manner of Rubens (1577-1640). The figures on the left were painted on a piece of canvas that was added to the other group and belong to the artist's late style.

This painting is not documented until 1746, when it was at the La Granja Palace.

[Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid - Oil on canvas, 152.3 x 240.5 cm]

Jean-Baptiste Mauzaisse - Louis VII Takes the Standard at Saint-Denis [1840]

Jean-Baptiste Mauzaisse - Louis VII takes the Standard at Saint-Denis [1840], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Jean-Baptiste Mauzaisse (Corbeil, November 1784 - Paris, 1844) was a French painter and lithographer. Mauzaisse's specialty was painting historical subjects, especially battle scenes, but he also painted portraits. In 1822, he was commissioned to decorate several ceilings in the Louvre.

[Chateau de Versailles - Oil on canvas]

Camille Pissarro - Jalais Hill, Pontoise [1867]

Camille Pissarro - Jalais Hill, Pontoise [1867], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

The pictures that Pissarro painted in the late 1860s at Pontoise, a small village near Paris, are among his most important early works. These views of lanes, farm buildings, hillsides, and fields are firmly structured in composition and are characterised by strong brushstrokes and broad, flat areas of colour that owe much to the work of Courbet and Corot, whose paintings were then on view in large exhibitions in Paris.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 87 x 114.9 cm]

Claude Monet - The Japanese Footbridge and the Water Lily Pool, Giverny [1899]

Claude Monet - The Japanese Footbridge and the Water Lily Pool, Giverny [1899], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Philadelphia Museum of Art - Oil on canvas, 89.2 x 93.3 cm]

Alexandre-Jean-Baptiste Hesse - Funerary Honours Rendered to Titian, Who Died in Venice during the Plague of 1576 [c.1833]

Alexandre-Jean-Baptiste Hesse - Funerary Honours Rendered to Titian, Who Died in Venice during the Plague of 1576 [c.1833], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Alexandre-Jean-Baptiste Hesse (Paris, September 30, 1806 - Paris, August 7, 1879) was a French painter. He entered the studio of Jean-Victor Bertin in 1820, enrolling at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts the following year. He then travelled in France, visiting the Midi in 1825. In 1830 he visited first Rome, where he met Horace Vernet, Director of the Academie Francaise, and then Venice. In 1833 he exhibited Funeral Honours Rendered to Titian after his Death at Venice during the Plague of 1576 at the Salon, where he won a first-class medal.

This painting is a preparatory sketch for the painting in the Musée du Louvre, Paris.

[Philadelphia Museum of Art - Oil on canvas, 40 x 59.1 cm]

François Louis Joseph Watteau - The Grand Square in Lille During the Siege of 1792 [1794]

François Louis Joseph Watteau - The Grand Square in Lille During the Siege of 1792 [1794], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

François Louis Joseph Watteau, known (like his father) as the Watteau of Lille (Lille, August 18, 1758 - Lille, December 1, 1823) was a French painter, active in his birthplace. He was the son of the painter Louis Joseph Watteau (1731-1798) and grandson of Noël Joseph Watteau (1689-1756) - Noël was the brother of Jean-Antoine Watteau, the painter of fêtes galantes. From 1808 to his death he was deputy curator of the Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille, which his father had helped to found.

[Château de Versailles - Oil on canvas, 82 x 65 cm]

Salomon van Ruysdael - A Ferry on a River [1649]

Salomon van Ruysdael - A Ferry on a River [1649], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Salomon van Ruysdael (Dutch, 1600/03 - 1670), one of the leading landscape painters of his generation, was renowned for the atmospheric effects he created in his images of life along peaceful Dutch waterways. In the 1640s he helped lay the foundation for the classical period of Dutch landscape and influenced a generation of artists, including his nephew Jacob van Ruysdael, Meindert Hobbema, and Aelbert Cuyp.

Salomon’s Ferry on a River, signed and dated 1649, is both imposing in scale and visually compelling. It depicts a ferryboat filled with travelers, including some seated in a horse-drawn carriage, crossing a broad river near a turreted castle. A large clump of trees silhouetted against the windswept blue sky provides a framework for the animals and humans activating the scene. Light floods into this harmonious composition, illuminating the leaves of the trees as well as the distant sailboats and village church.

[National Gallery of Art, Washington - Oil on canvas, 39.2 x 52.5 inches]