Gian Lorenzo Bernini | David, 1623-1624

David is one of the four sculptures executed by the young Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680) for Cardinal Scipione Borghese.

The artist worked on the statuary groups for the Villa on the Pincio for seven crucial years during which his brilliance, freedom, narrative bent, and delight in amazement blossomed and then developed in all their power.

The work had been commissioned from Bernini by Cardinal Montalto for his villa in 1623.

The cardinal’s untimely death blocked the commission, but Scipione Borghese decided to take it over.

Bernini interrupted his work on the Apollo and Daphne, dedicating himself to this new sculpture, which - according to Baldinucci, one of the artist’s first biographers - he finished in only seven months of work.

Gian Lorenzo Bernini | David, 1623-1624 | Galleria Borghese

Rembrandt van Rijn | Woman with a Pink, early 1660

Her forehead crisscrossed with jewels, the sitter of this portrait displays a pink, or carnation, a symbol of love and marriage.

The gilt picture frame visible in the background locates her in a luxurious interior, but her pensive expression elevates the portrait beyond a mere statement of status.

If scholars are correct in identifying the sitter in the pendant portrait hanging next to this one as auctioneer Pieter Haringh, then the woman who appears here must be his wife, Elisabeth Delft. | Source: © Metropolitan Museum of Art

Rembrandt | Woman with a Pink, early 1660s | Metropolitan Museum of Art

Rembrandt's 'recipe for a stopping-out varnish'

Rembrandt's 'recipe for a stopping-out varnish' on the verso of a drawing 'Landcape with a River and Trees', 1654-55.

• "..in order to etch, take white turpentine oil, and add half the turpentine to it; pour the mixture into a small glass bottle and let it boil in pure water for half an hour".

It is evident that Rembrandt refers (alas fragmentarily) to a so-called 'stopping-out varnish', used to terminate the bite of acid in select areas of a plate that had already been exposed to the etching agent.

Thus other portions will remain exposed to the acid to deepen the bite.

Eberhard Keil | Pupil of Rembrandt

Eberhard Keil or Keyl dit Monsù Bernardo (1624-1687) was a Danish Baroque painter who became a pupil of Rembrandt.

Keil was born in Helsingør.

According to the RKD he was a pupil of the Danish painter Morten Steenwinkel, who became a pupil of Rembrandt in Amsterdam in the years 1642-1644.

5 Masterpieces from the Hermitage

The State Hermitage Museum / Государственный Эрмитаж has been open to the public since 1852.

It was founded in 1764 when Empress Catherine the Great acquired a collection of paintings from the Berlin merchant Johann Ernst Gotzkowsky.

The museum celebrates the anniversary of its founding each year on 7 December, Saint Catherine's Day.

Caravaggio | Lute-Player, 1595-1596

"The Lute-Player", painted by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio in 1595-96, is the only work by the famous master in Russia and it is considered without any exaggeration to be one of the gems of the Hermitage Museum collection.

The Hermitage painting is known to have belonged to Marchese Vincenzo Giustiniani.

The Giustiniani collection was put up for sale in Paris and came into the Hermitage in 1808 through the mediation of the director of the Louvre, Dominique Vivan Denon. | © Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg

Caravaggio (Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio) (1571-1610) | The Lute Player, 1596 | Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg

Famous Sculptures of the Galleria Borghese, Rome

The Galleria Borghese Museum houses and displays a collection of ancient sculptures, bas-reliefs and mosaics, as well as paintings and sculptures dating from the 15th through the 19th centuries.

Among the masterpieces of the collection - the first and most important part of which goes back to the collecting of Cardinal Scipione Borghese (1579-1633), nephew of Pope Paul V - are paintings by Caravaggio, Raphael, Titian, Correggio, Antonello da Messina and Giovanni Bellini and sculptures by Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Antonio Canova.

The works are displayed in the 20 frescoed rooms that, together with the portico and the entrance hall, constitute the spaces of the Museum open to the public.

More than 260 paintings are housed in the storerooms of the Galleria Borghese, which are located above the floor of the Pinacoteca and set up like a picture gallery.

Cristoforo Stati (Italian, 1556-1619) | Adone and Venere, XVI-XVII | Installation Galleria Borghese

5 Masterpieces at the Uffizi Gallery

The Uffizi Gallery entirely occupies the first and second floors of the large building constructed between 1560-1580 and designed by Giorgio Vasari.

It is famous worldwide for its outstanding collections of ancient sculptures and paintings (from the Middle Ages to the Modern period).

The collections of paintings from the 14th-century and Renaissance period include some absolute masterpieces: Giotto, Simone Martini, Piero della Francesca, Beato Angelico, Filippo Lippi, Botticelli, Mantegna, Correggio, Leonardo, Raffaello, Michelangelo and Caravaggio, in addition to many precious works by European painters (mainly German, Dutch and Flemish).

Moreover, the Gallery boasts an invaluable collection of ancient statues and busts from the Medici family, which adorns the corridors and consists of ancient Roman copies of lost Greek sculptures.

Johan Zoffany (1733-1810) | Tribuna of the Uffizi, 1772-1777 | Royal Collection (UK)

5 Masterpieces of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art presents over 5,000 years of art from around the world for everyone to experience and enjoy.

The Museum lives in two iconic sites in New York City - The Met Fifth Avenue and The Met Cloisters.

Millions of people also take part in The Met experience online.

Since its founding in 1870, The Met has always aspired to be more than a treasury of rare and beautiful objects.

Every day, art comes alive in the Museum's galleries and through its exhibitions and events, revealing new ideas and unexpected connections across time and across cultures.

Guido Reni | The Immaculate Conception, 1627

Guido Reni (Bologna, 1575-1642), during his lifetime the most celebrated living painter in Italy, was famous for the elegance of his compositions and the beauty and grace of his heads, earning him the epithet "Divine".

This altarpiece, with its otherworldly space shaped by clouds and putti in a high-keyed palette, was commissioned in about 1627 by the Spanish ambassador in Rome for the infanta of Spain.

It later hung in the cathedral of Seville, where it deeply influenced Spanish painters, especially Bartolomé Estebán Murillo, whose workshop produced many iterations of this subject.

The Immaculate Conception became a symbol of the universality of the Catholic Church and was used for the conversion of populations across Spain’s global empire. | Source: © Metropolitan Museum of Art

Guido Reni (Italian, 1575-1642) | The Immaculate Conception, 1627 | Metropolitan Museum of Art

Rembrandt | The Night Watch, 1642

Militia Company of District II under the Command of Captain Frans Banninck Cocq, also known as The Shooting Company of Frans Banning Cocq and Willem van Ruytenburch, but commonly referred to as The Night Watch (Dutch: De Nachtwacht), is a 1642 painting by Rembrandt van Rijn.

It is in the collection of the Amsterdam Museum but is prominently displayed in the Rijksmuseum as the best-known painting in its collection.

The Night Wahtc is one of the most famous Dutch Golden Age paintings.

Rembrandt's large painting (363x437 cm (12 by 14+1⁄2 feet)) is famed for transforming a group portrait of a civic guard company into a compelling drama energized by light and shadow (tenebrism).

The title is a misnomer; the painting does not depict a nocturnal scene.

Sir Anthony Van Dyck | Baroque painter

Sir Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641) was the most important Flemish painter of the 17th century after Rubens, whose works influenced the young Van Dyck.

He also studied and was profoundly influenced by the work of Italian artists, above all, Titian.

Anthony van Dyck studied under Peter Paul Rubens and was one of his most accomplished students.

Jean-Honoré Fragonard | Rococo painter

Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806), French Rococo painter whose most familiar works, such as The Swing (1767), are characterized by delicate hedonism.

Fragonard was the son of a haberdasher’s assistant. The family moved to Paris about 1738, and in 1747 the boy was apprenticed to a lawyer, who, noticing his appetite for drawing, suggested that he be taught painting.

François Boucher | Rococo painter

François Boucher (1703-1770) was a French painter, draughtsman and etcher, who worked in the Rococo style.

Boucher is known for his idyllic and voluptuous paintings on classical themes, decorative allegories, and pastoral scenes.

He was perhaps the most celebrated painter and decorative artist of the 18th century.

Ginevra Cantofoli | Baroque painter

Ginevra Cantofoli (1618-1672) was an Italian painter.

She was active in Bologna in the Baroque period.

Cantofoli was born in Bologna, Italy in 1618.

She trained under Giovanni Andrea Sirani, the father of Elisabetta Sirani, in Bologna.

Van Gogh, Rembrandt and the Rijksmuseum

Vincent van Gogh travelled to Amsterdam in 1885 to visit the Rijksmuseum, which had recently opened.

On the day of his visit he painted his "View of Amsterdam from Central Station".

The paint still wet, he took the new work with him to the Rijksmuseum.

Vincent van Gogh | Wheat field, 1888 | Rijksmuseum

Sebastiano Ricci | Baroque painter

Sebastiano Ricci (1659-1734) was born in Belluno. At the age of fourteen, Sebastiano Ricci left his birthplace for Venice, where he soon entered the studio of Federico Cervelli (1625 - before 1700), a Milanese painter active there since the mid-1650s.

While contemporary biographers sometimes discounted Sebastiano's debt to Cervelli, modern scholars generally agree that the Milanese master gave him solid practical instruction and introduced him to the Venetian painters of the seventeenth century.

Lucio Massari | Madonna of the Laundry, 1620

"Mary washed, Joseph laid... "

The subject of this painting really seems to illustrate the famous lullaby your grandparents or parents used to sing to you when you were a child.

You know, no one can escape household affairs, not even Joseph, Mary and Jesus!

The scene depicted by the Bolognese painter Lucio Massari (1568-1633) is in fact very unusual: every member of the Sacraiglia works with commitment and organization to clean and iron the laundry.

Lucio Massari Holy Family (Madonna of the Laundry), 1620 | Galleria degli Uffizi, Firenze

Marco Ricci | Baroque painter

Marco Ricci (1676-1730) was an Italian painter of the Baroque period.

Early years

He was born at Belluno and received his first instruction in art from his uncle, Sebastiano Ricci, likely in Milan in 1694-6.

He left for Venice with his uncle in 1696, but had to flee the city.

He visited Rome, where he was for some time occupied in painting perspective views.

Hans Laagland, 1965 | Neo Baroque style

Hans Laagland was born in Koersel (Belgium) to Ludo Laagland, a professional painter.

His father trained Hans throughout his childhood.

At the age of ten, Hans completed his first oil painting and two years later held his first solo exhibition.

As he continued to develop his skills, he became enthralled with the works and techniques of Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), and at fifteen he set out to study those masterful techniques.

Rosalba Carriera | Rococo painter

Rosalba Carriera (1673-1757), a Venetian Rococo painter, was best known for her innovative approach to pastels, which had previously been used for informal drawings and preparatory sketches.

She was also credited with pastel as a medium for serious portraiture that redefined the Rococo manner.

In her younger years, she specialized in portrait miniatures.

Carriera would later become known for her pastel portraits, helping popularize the medium in eighteenth-century Europe.

Federico Barocci | Baroque / Mannerist painter

Federico Barocci (also written Barozzi) (1535 in Urbino - 1612 in Urbino) was an Italian Renaissance painter and printmaker.

His original name was Federico Fiori, and he was nicknamed Il Baroccio.

His work was highly esteemed and influential, and foreshadows the Baroque of Rubens.

He is generally considered the greatest and the most individual painter of his time in central Italy.