Sphinx of Naxos

The Sphinx of Naxos, also Sphinx of the Naxians, now in the Archaeological Museum of Delphi, is a 2.22 meter tall marble statue of a sphinx, a mythical creature with the head of a woman, the chest and wings composed of the impressive feathers of a prey bird turned upward, and the body of a lioness.

The Sphinx stood on a 10 meter column that culminated in one of the first Ionic capitals, and was erected next to the Temple of Apollo in Delphi, the religious center of Ancient Greece, in 560 BCE.

The first fragments were excavated from the sanctuary of the Temple of Apollo in 1860. The remainder was found in 1893.

Claude Monet | Vétheuil, 1880

"I have painted the Seine throughout my life, at every hour, at every season...

I have never tired of it: for me the Seine is always new" - Claude Monet

Claude Monet | Vétheuil, 1880 | Sotheby's

The present work depicts Vétheuil, the small village situated sixty kilometres north of Paris on the riverbanks of the Seine, where the artist lived with his wife and children from 1878 until 1881.

Unlike Monet’s previous home of Argenteuil, Vétheuil was further along the Seine and thus slightly out of reach for Parisians escaping the city on a weekend.

As a result, both the village and surrounding countryside had remained largely untouched and the remote setting became the ideal vehicle for Monet’s increasing interest in painting nature en plein air.

Van Gogh's "Café Terrace at Night" was inspired by Maupassant's "Bel-Ami"

After finishing Café Terrace at Night, Vincent van Gogh wrote a letter to his sister expressing his enthusiasm:

"You never told me if you had read Guy de Maupassant’s Bel-Ami, and what you now think of his talent in general.

I say this because the beginning of Bel-Ami is precisely the description of a starry night in Paris, with the lighted cafés of the boulevard, and it's something like the same subject that I've painted just now". (Letter 678 from Vincent van Gogh to Wilhelmina van Gogh, Arles, 1888.)

Vincent van Gogh | Café Terrace at Night, 1888 | Kröller-Müller Museum, Netherlands

Henri Matisse | The Series of the Romanian Blouses

Henri Matisse | Romanian Blouse with Green Sleeves, 1937 | Cincinnati Art Museum

Henri Matisse's 'Romanian Blouse' is an exploration of composition, line, and form.

The movement of broad exuberant brushwork across the flat two-dimensional plane of the canvas emphasizes the energy of the composition and evokes the sitter's personality.

The Cincinnati Art Museum's painting is one of several paintings and drawings on a single theme - female models clothed in a boldly patterned Moroccan robes or embroidered Romanian blouses - that Matisse made in the late 1930s and early 1940s.

Henri Matisse | Romanian Blouse with Green Sleeves, 1937 | Cincinnati Art Museum

Pierre-Auguste Renoir | The Wave / L'Onda, 1882

Each summer between 1879 and 1882 Pierre-Auguste Renoir traveled to Wargemont near Dieppe on the Normandy coast to visit his friend and patron Paul Bérard.

Renoir and Bérard, a banker and French diplomat, had met in 1878, when the artist was still struggling to find collectors for his Impressionist canvases.

Renoir and Bérard quickly formed a bond, leading to numerous commissioned portraits of the financier’s children and affording the artist a comfortable place to go for the summer well removed from the oppressive heat of Paris.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir | The Wave, 1882 | Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Memphis, United States

Vincent van Gogh | Houses at Auvers, 1890

"Houses at Auvers" is an oil painting by Vincent van Gogh, located at the Toledo Museum of Art.

It was created towards the end of May or beginning of June 1890, shortly after he had moved to Auvers-sur-Oise, a small town northwest of Paris, France.

His move was prompted by his dissatisfaction with the boredom and monotony of asylum life at Saint-Rémy, as well as by his emergence as an artist of some renown following Albert Aurier's celebrated January 1890, Mercure de France, review of his work.

In his final two months at Saint-Rémy, van Gogh painted from memory a number of canvases he called, "reminisces of the North", harking back to his Dutch roots.

The influence of this return to the North continued at Auvers, notably in The Church at Auvers.

He did not, however, repeat his studies of peasant life of the sort he had made in his Nuenen period. His paintings of dwellings at Auvers encompassed a range of social domains. | Source: © Wikipedia

Vincent van Gogh | Houses at Auvers, 1890 | Toledo Museum of Art

Museum Masterpieces

Annie Feray Mutrie (British, 1826-1893) - Cactus | Bonhams

Exhibited:

(possibly) Royal Academy, 1866, no. 370;

Paris Universal Exhibition, 1867.

Annie Feray Mutrie was the younger sister of Martha Darley Mutrie. Born in Manchester, both girls studied at the Manchester School of Design under George Wallis. Both artists specialised in still life painting, regularly exhibiting at the Royal Academy between 1851-1882.

The naturalistic style of their work was admired by John Ruskin, who in praise of Annie Feray wrote: "All these flower paintings are remarkable for very lovely, pure, and yet unobtrusive colour- perfectly tender and yet luscious, and a richness of petal texture that seems absolutely scented.

Claude Monet | The River, 1881 | Museum Barberini

Claude Monet depicted an evening on the river using a reduced formal vocabulary. The impulsive play of lines seems to be rapidly set down, as if the painter had wanted to complete the composition just before the sun disappeared.

Several branches glow in the red light of its last rays. Although the picture has the appearance of a sketch, the artist’s signature indicates that he considered it an independent, completed work.

According to Academic standards, a finished painting was characterized by a polished surface in which even subordinate elements should be developed in some detail.

Monet resisted this aesthetic of the fini by dissolving the traditional distinction between the preparatory sketch (esquisse or étude) and the painting intended for exhibition (tableau).

Saint Cecilia: Patroness of Musicians

In the fourth century a Greek religious romance on the Loves of Cecilia and Valerian was written in glorification of virginal life with the purpose of taking the place of then-popular sensual romances.

Consequently, until better evidence is produced, we must conclude that St. Cecilia was not known or venerated in Rome until about the time when Pope Gelasius (496) introduced her name into his Sacramentary.

It is said that there was a church dedicated to St. Cecilia in Rome in the fifth century, in which Pope Symmachus held a council in 500.

The story of St. Cecilia is not without beauty or merit. She is said to have been quite close to God and prayed often:

"In the city of Rome there was a virgin named Cecilia, who came from an extremely rich family and was given in marriage to a youth named Valerian. She wore sackcloth next to her skin, fasted, and invoked the saints, angels, and virgins, beseeching them to guard her virginity".

Orazio Gentileschi🎨 | Saint Cecilia with an Angel

Vermeer | A Young Woman standing at a Virginal, 1670-1672

The richly dressed lady playing a virginal stands in a prosperous Dutch home with paintings on the wall, a marble-tiled floor, and a skirting of locally produced Delft blue and white tiles. The two paintings on the wall behind her cannot be identified with certainty.

The small landscape on the left and the painting decorating the lid of the virginal resemble works by Vermeer🎨’s Delft colleague Pieter Groenewegen.

The second painting, attributed to Cesar van Everdingen, shows the motif of Cupid holding a card. This figure derives from a contemporary emblem. It may either refer to the idea of faithfulness to one lover or, in conjunction with the virginal, to the traditional association of music and love.

Van der Vaart and Wissing | Queen Anne, when Princess of Denmark,1685

Title: Queen Anne, when Princess of Denmark;

Artists: Willem Wissing (Dutch painter🎨, 1656-1687), Jan van der Vaart (Dutch painter🎨, 1647-1721)

Current location: National Galleries of Scotland.

Queen Anne (1665-1714) - Princess of Denmark, Reigned 1702-1714 - was the last of the Stuart dynasty to occupy the British throne.

Shown here aged eighteen, seductively dressed and posed in a sumptuous interior, her reign was dominated by war with the French and her failure to produce an heir.

Giuseppe Sanmartino | The Veiled Christ, 1753

Placed at the centre of the nave of the Sansevero Chapel, The Veiled Christ is one of the most famous and impressive works of art in the world.

It was the Prince’s wish that the statue be made by Antonio Corradini (Italian🎨 Rococo sculptor🎨, 19 October 1688 - 12 August 1752), who had already done Modesty for him.

However, Corradini died in 1752 and only managed to make a terracotta scale model of the Christ, which is now preserved in the Museo di San Martino.

Alexandre Cabanel | Michelangelo in his Studio, 1859

Alexandre Cabanel🎨

1823-1889

Academic Classical painter and teacher

Michelangelo🎨 in His Studio, Visited by Pope Julius II

79 x 133 cms | 31 x 521/4ins

Oil on canvas
Musée Goupil, Bordeaux

Ancient Egyptian Sculpture

The culture and monuments of ancient Egypt have left a lasting legacy on the world. The cult of the goddess Isis, for example, became popular in the Roman Empire, as obelisks and other relics were transported back to Rome.

The Romans also imported building materials from Egypt to erect Egyptian-style structures. Early historians such as Herodotus, Strabo, and Diodorus Siculus studied and wrote about the land, which Romans came to view as a place of mystery.

Thutmose | The Sculptor of the bust of Nefertiti

The King's Favourite and Master of Works, the Sculptor Thutmose - (also spelled Djhutmose and Thutmosis), flourished 1350 BC, is thought to have been the official court sculptor of the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten in the latter part of his reign.

German archaeological expedition digging in Akhenaten's deserted city of Akhetaten, at Amarna, found a ruined house and studio complex (labeled P47.1-3) in early December 1912; the building was identified as that of Thutmose based on an ivory horse blinker found in a rubbish pit in the courtyard inscribed with his name and job title.

Ancient Egypt / La Civiltà Egizia

Ancient Egypt was a civilization of ancient Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. It is one of six civilizations to arise independently.

Egyptian civilization followed prehistoric Egypt and coalesced around 3150 BC (according to conventional Egyptian chronology) with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh Narmer (commonly referred to as Menes).

Royal Palace of Caserta | A triumph of Italian Baroque

The Royal Palace of Caserta is a former royal residence in Caserta, southern Italy, constructed by the House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies as their main residence as kings of Naples.

It is one of the largest palaces erected in Europe during the 18th century.

In 1997, the palace was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site; its nomination described it as "the swan song of the spectacular art of the Baroque, from which it adopted all the features needed to create the illusions of multidirectional space".

Titian | Danaë and the Shower of Gold, 1560-1565

"The Danaë and the Shower of Gold") comprises at least five oil-on-canvas paintings by the Venetian master Titian, completed between 1540-1570.

The works are based on the mythological princess Danaë.

According to Ovid she was isolated in a bronze dungeon following a prophecy that her firstborn would eventually kill her father.

Although aware of the consequences, Danaë was seduced and became pregnant by Zeus (in Roman mythology Jupiter), who, inflamed by lust, descended from Mount Olympus to entice her as a shower of gold.

Karl Brjullov | The Last Day of Pompeii, 1830-33

The Last Day of Pompeii is a large canvas painting by Russian artist Karl Brjullov in 1830-33.

Brjullov visited the site of Pompeii in 1828, making numerous sketches depicting the 79 CE Vesuvius eruption.

Edvard Munch | Evening Talk, 1889

Title: Evening Talk

Author: Edvard Munch🎨 (Norwegian Symbolist / Expressionist painter, 1863-1944)

Date: 1889

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 175,6 x 216 x 9,1 cm

Current location: National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen

Munch’s lifelong obsession with loneliness and psychologically twisted love relationship began with this large picture.

This was the first time that he truly played out the theme that more than anything else infused his depictions of human beings “breathing and feeling, suffering and loving”, to use the artist’s own words.