Rosso Fiorentino | Pietà, 1538-1540

This is the only easel painting that can be dated with certainty to Rosso's stay in France in 1530-40.

The cushions beneath Christ's body bear the blue alerions on an orange background of the coat of arms of Constable Anne de Montmorency, from whose château at Ecouen the Pietà was taken to the Louvre in the late 18th century.

The marks visible on the bodies of Christ and St John are due to an initial, reversed composition - vsible under X-ray photography - which Rosso had blacked out.

Rosso Fiorentino | Mannerist painter

Italian painter and decorator, Rosso Fiorentino (1494-1540), original name Giovanni Battista di Jacopo, was an exponent of the expressive style that is often called early, or Florentine Mannerism, and one of the founders of the Fontainebleau school.

Pontormo | Sacra famiglia, 1515 | Art in Detail

Jacopo Carucci🎨 (May 24, 1494 - January 2, 1557), usually known as simply Pontormo🎨, was not only an painter but also an sculptor from the Florentine School.

To him was attributed: The Holy Family, 1515, terracotta, h. 44 cm, exhibit in the Bode-Museum, Berlin, Germany.

For biographical notes -in english and italian- and works by Pontormo see:

• Pontormo | Mannerist painter🎨

Vitaly Tikhov | Social realist painter

Тихов Виталий Гаврилович (1876-1939) was an Ukrainian painter, one of the best and most talented students in Vladimir Makovsky's studio.

In the early 1910s his magnificent, large-format "bath-house" paintings were especially successful and much admired, and for these he was twice awarded the graduation Gold Medal of the Academy of Fine Arts, having studied there on two separate occasions.

Michelangelo | Bacchus, 1496-1497

Bacchus (1496-1497) is a marble sculpture by the Italian High Renaissance sculptor, painter, architect and poet Michelangelo. The statue is somewhat over life-size and depicts Bacchus, the Roman god of wine, in a reeling pose suggestive of drunkenness. Commissioned by Raffaele Riario, a high-ranking Cardinal and collector of antique sculpture, it was rejected by him and was bought instead by Jacopo Galli, Riario’s banker and a friend to Michelangelo. Along with the Pietà the Bacchus is one of only two surviving sculptures from the artist's first period in Rome.