FLORENTINE school in 1530, workshop of Andrea Del Sarto
The Virgin and Child with St. John the Baptist
Oil on Poplar pane
72 x 56cm - 28 3/8 x 22 1/16 IN .
Private Collection
Andrea del Sarto (1486–1530) was an Italian painter from Florence, whose career
flourished during the High Renaissance and early Mannerism. Though highly
regarded during his lifetime as an artist senza errori ("without
errors"), his renown was eclipsed after his death by that of his
contemporaries, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael. More
Lucas Cranach the Elder (c. 1472 – 16 October 1553)
Christ in Limbo (Christ Freeing Souls from Hell), c. 1530
Private Collection
The story of Christ's descent into Limbo to rescue the souls of the righteous who lived before his time enjoyed a special place in the European popular imagination. This vision of Hell, its eternal darkness broken by Christ's dazzling entry, is exceptionally vivid.
Lucas Cranach the Elder (c. 1472 – 16
October 1553) was a German Renaissance
painter and printmaker in woodcut and engraving. He was court painter to the
Electors of Saxony for most of his career, and is known for his portraits, both
of German princes and those of the leaders of the Protestant Reformation, whose
cause he embraced with enthusiasm, becoming a close friend of Martin Luther. He
also painted religious subjects, first in the Catholic tradition, and later
trying to find new ways of conveying Lutheran religious concerns in art. He
continued throughout his career to paint nude subjects drawn from mythology and
religion. He had a large workshop and many works exist in different versions;
his son Lucas Cranach the Younger, and others, continued to create versions of
his father's works for decades after his death. Lucas Cranach the Elder has
been considered the most successful German artist of his time. More
Unknown German artist
St. Martin of Tours and St. Nicholas of Bari, ca. 1450
Tempera on wood
Art Gallery of South Australia, Victoria
Saint Martin of Tours, (born ad 316, Sabaria, Pannonia [now Szombathely, Hung.]—died Nov. 8, 397, Candes, Gaul [France]. Of pagan parentage, Martin chose Christianity at the age of 10. As a youth he was forced into the Roman army, but later he petitioned the Roman emperor Julian the Apostate to be released from the army because “I am Christ’s soldier: I am not allowed to fight.” He was imprisoned but was soon discharged.
On leaving the Roman army, Martin settled at Poitiers, under the guidance of Bishop Hilary. He became a missionary in the provinces of Pannonia and Illyricum (now in the Balkan Peninsula), where he opposed Arianism, a heresy that denied the divinity of Christ. Forced out of Illyricum by the Arians, Martin went to Italy. In 360 he rejoined Hilary at Poitiers. Martin then founded a community of hermits at Ligugé, the first monastery in Gaul. In 371 he was made bishop of Tours, and outside that city he founded another monastery, Marmoutier, to which he withdrew whenever possible.
As bishop, Martin made Marmoutier a great monastic complex to which European ascetics were attracted and from which apostles spread Christianity throughout Gaul. He himself was an active missionary in Touraine and in the country districts where Christianity was as yet barely known. In 384/385 he took part in a conflict at the imperial court in Trier, Fr., to which the Roman emperor Magnus Maximus had summoned Bishop Priscillian of Ávila, Spain, and his followers. Martin protested to Maximus against the killing of heretics (Priscillian), and against civil interference in ecclesiastical matters. Priscillian was nevertheless executed, and Martin’s continued involvement with the case caused him to fall into disfavour with the Spanish bishops. During his lifetime, Martin acquired a reputation as a miracle worker, and he was one of the first nonmartyrs to be publicly venerated as a saint. More
Saint Nicholas (15 March 270 – 6 December 343), also called Nikolaos of Myra, was a historic 4th-century Christian saint and Greek Bishop of Myra, in Asia Minor. Because of the many miracles attributed to his intercession, he is also known as Nikolaos the Wonderworker. His reputation evolved among the faithful, as was common for early Christian saints, and his legendary habit of secret gift-giving gave rise to the traditional model of Santa Claus through Sinterklaas.
The historical Saint Nicholas, as known from strict history: He was born at Patara, Lycia in Asia Minor. In his youth he made a pilgrimage to Egypt and the Palestine area. Shortly after his return he became Bishop of Myra and was later cast into prison during the persecution of Diocletian. He was released after the accession of Constantine and was present at the Council of Nicaea.
He was buried in his church at Myra, and by the 6th century his shrine there had become well-known. In 1087 Italian sailors or merchants stole his alleged remains from Myra and took them to Bari, Italy; this removal greatly increased the saint’s popularity in Europe, and Bari became one of the most crowded of all pilgrimage centres. Nicholas’s relics remain enshrined in the 11th-century basilica of San Nicola at Bari. More
Aimé Nicolas Morot, (1850–1913)
The Good Samaritan, c. 1880
Oil on canvas
268.5 × 198 cm (105.7 × 78 in)
Petit Palais, Paris
The parable of the Good Samaritan is a
didactic story told by Jesus in Luke 10:25–37. It is about a traveler who is
stripped of clothing, beaten, and left half dead alongside the road. First a
priest and then a Levite comes by, but both avoid the man. Finally, a Samaritan
comes by. Samaritans and Jews generally despised each other, but the Samaritan
helps the injured man. Jesus is telling the parable in response to the question
from a lawyer, "And who is my neighbour?" whom that should be loved.
Jesus answers his question in who is his neighbour, but also tells him to love
his neighbour.
The parable has inspired painting, sculpture, satire,
poetry, and film. The colloquial phrase "good Samaritan", meaning
someone who helps a stranger, derives from this parable, and many hospitals and
charitable organizations are named after the Good Samaritan.
More
Aimé Nicolas Morot (1850–1913) was a French painter and sculptor in the Academic Art style. He was born in Nancy, where at age 12 he started his studies in drawing, painting and gravure printing at l'Ecole Municipal de Dessin et de Peinture de Nancy. He continued his study in Nancy until the late 1860s and subsequently attended the atelier of Alexandre Cabanel at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, but could not study in the noisy environment of Cabanel's atelier and left after having received two corrections by Cabanel. In the next two years he continued his studies independently. Despite his lack of attendance at the École, he won the Grand Prix de Rome in 1873 with his first submission, the Babylonian, which is currently in the collection of the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris (below).
Aimé Nicolas Morot (1850–1913)
La captivité des juifs à Babylone, 1873
Paris, Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts
The fellowship allowed him to travel to Italy and become a resident of the Villa Medici, where the French Academy in Rome was housed. Morot rarely set foot in his atelier in the Villa Medici, but produced paintings in a regular fashion anyway. His first submission to the Salon de Paris awarded him a third-class medal for the painting Spring in 1876. In 1877 He was awarded a second-class medal for Médée, a first-class medal in 1879...
He returned to Paris in 1880, where he met painter Jean-Léon Gérôme and married his daughter Suzanne Mélanie Gérôme (1867-1941). His daughter Denise Morot was born in the late 1890s. Suzanne Morot modelled for paintings in 1897 and, together with her daughter, in 1904.
In 1900, he won a grand prix of the l'Exposition Universelle (Paris Exhibition) and in the same year became professor at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. In 1910, Morot ordered construction of Maison dite Ker Arlette in Dinard, a coastal village in North-east Brittany. He lived there until his death on 12 August 1913. More
Gierymski Maksymilian
RETURN OF A SERVANT, 1868
oil, canvas
59 x 88.5cm
Private Collection
Matthew 24:46 Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom the master has put in charge of his household, to give the others their food at the proper time? 46 Blessed is that servant whose master returns and finds him doing his job.
Maksymilian Gierymski (1846 in Warsaw – 1874 in Reichenhall, Bavaria) was a Polish painter, specializing mainly in watercolours. He was the older brother of painter Aleksander Gierymski.
As a seventeen-year-old boy, he participated in the January Uprising. He was educated at the Warsaw Drawing School initially, but then received a government scholarship in 1867 and went to study at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. He became one of the leading painters of the Munich realistic school. Initially best known for this battle paintings, he also created many landscape paintings, especially of southern Poland, which he visited several times.
Completely successful in western Europe, he did not gain approval nor popularity in Poland of the 19th century, although he sent paintings to exhibitions in Warsaw regularly from 1868 on. He did however win awards at exhibitions in Munich (1869) and in Berlin (1872). More
After Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (December 1617 – April 3, 1682)
St. John the Baptist in a landscape
30 x 23cm - 11 x 9 13/16 1/16 IN.
Private Collection
Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (born late
December 1617, baptized January 1, 1618 – April 3, 1682) was a Spanish Baroque painter. Although he is best
known for his religious works, Murillo also produced a considerable number of
paintings of contemporary women and children. His lively, realist portraits of
flower girls, street urchins, and beggars constitute an extensive and appealing
record of the everyday life of his times. More
After Guido Reni (Bologna 1575-Bologna 1642)
The Virgin Sewing
Oil on Copper
26 x 20cm - 10 1/4 x 7 7/8 IN.
Private Collection
Seated to right in a chamber, three child angels behind, bent over parcel of material with needle in right hand.
Guido Reni (4 November
1575 – 18 August 1642) was an
Italian painter of high-Baroque style. Born in Bologna into a family of
musicians, Guido Reni was the son of Daniele Reni and Ginevra de’ Pozzi. As a
child of nine, he was apprenticed under the Bolognese studio of Denis Calvaert.
When Reni was about twenty years old he migrated to the rising rival studio,
named Accademia degli Incamminati (Academy of the "newly embarked",
or progressives), led by Lodovico Carracci. He went on to form the nucleus of a
prolific and successful school of Bolognese painters who followed Annibale
Carracci to Rome. Like many other Bolognese painters, Reni's painting was
thematic and eclectic in style. More
After Guido Reni (Bologna 1575-Bologna 1642)
The Virgin Sewing
Oil on canvas (transferred from panel)
27.5 x 21
Hunterian Museum & Art Gallery
When this work was bought in 1771, it was catalogued as by da Pesaro (Simone Cantarini 1612-1648). In fact it is a version of an early work by Guido Reni. Eighteenth-century knowledge was sometimes sufficient to establish the 'school' from which the work came, but not the precise identity of the painter. In the middle of the eighteenth century Reni's first painting of this subject on copper, dating from 1606, was in the French Royal Collection. In that painting the Virgin has a red dress, and is accompanied by only three angels. Concluding that his painting was of lesser quality, it mistakenly assigned it to Cantarini, Reni's pupil. This painting corresponds in its details of a white dress and four accompanying angels to Reni's second version of the Virgin Sewing also painted on copper, which passed from Mazarin's to the French Royal Collection. The high quality of the present painting, and the type of pigments used suggest that it is a contemporary studio replica of La couseuse. More
Anatoly (Anatoli) Zverev, 1931-1986
George on Horseback
oil on board
19 5/8 x 27 1/2 (50 x 70 cm)
Private Collection
Saint George (circa 275/281 – 23 April 303 AD) was
a soldier in the Roman army who later became venerated as a Christian martyr.
His parents were Christians of Greek background; his father Gerontius was a
Roman army official from Cappadocia and his mother Polychronia was from Lydda,
Syria Palaestina. Saint George became an officer in the Roman army in the Guard
of Diocletian, who ordered his death for failing to recant his Christian faith.
In the fully developed Western version of the Saint George
Legend, a dragon, or crocodile, makes its nest at the spring that provides
water for the city of "Silene" (perhaps modern Cyrene in Libya or the
city of Lydda in Palistine, depending on the source). Consequently, the
citizens have to dislodge the dragon from its nest for a time, to collect
water. To do so, each day they offer the dragon at first a sheep, and if no
sheep can be found, then a maiden is the best substitute for one. The victim is
chosen by drawing lots. One day, this happens to be the princess. The monarch
begs for her life to be spared, but to no avail. She is offered to the dragon,
but then Saint George appears on his travels. He faces the dragon, protects
himself with the sign of the Cross, slays the dragon, and rescues the princess.
The citizens abandon their ancestral paganism and convert to
Christianity. More
Anatoly (Anatoli) Zverev (November 3, 1931 Moscow –December 9, 1986 Moscow) was a Russian artist, a member of the non-conformist movement and a founder of Russian Expressionism in the 1960s. He spent all of his life in Moscow.
He did not have a solo show in Russia until shortly before his death in 1986 and his work was exhibited in small, underground galleries. Throughout his career he was harassed and persecuted by the Soviet authorities especially as his international success grew.
His style of tachisme can be compared with the work of the American Abstract Expressionist painter Jackson Pollock. His work was based on deep philosophical convictions, particularly the idea of momentalism, that everything is in constant change. His intention was to render direct sensations, and he worked at great speed. More
A 17th century Indo-Portuguese oratory with table
The Passion of Christ
Carved, polychrome and gilt teak oratory representing floral motifs and IHS insignia
Tilting doors painted with eight angles holding symbols of the Passion of Christ
Interior with four solomonic columns green and gilt ground
Base with drawer
162x82x40 cm
Private Collection
Jan van Scorel (1495–1552)
Mary Magdalene, circa 1530
Oil on oak panel
Height: 66.3 cm (26.1 in). Width: 76 cm (29.9 in).
Rijksmuseum Amsterdam
Mary Magdalene is traditionally depicted with a vessel of ointment,. The anointing of Jesus is one of the relatively few events reported by each of the four Gospels, although the details differ in the accounts. All report the anointing of Jesus with expensive perfume by a woman, who pours over Jesus the contents of an alabastron jar of "nard" (or spikenard), a very expensive perfume. The anointing angers some of the onlookers because the perfume could have been sold for a year's wages—which the Gospel of Mark enumerates as 300 denarii—and the money given to the poor. Matthew's gospel states that the "disciples were indignant" and John's states that it was Judas who was most offended. John adds that he was bothered because he (Judas) was a thief and desired the money for himself. Jesus is described as justifying the action of the woman by stating that the poor will always exist, and can be helped whenever desired. More
Jan van Scorel (1495 – 6 December 1562) was a Dutch painter, who played a leading role in introducing aspects of Italian Renaissance painting into Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting. Van Scorel was one of the early painters of the Romanist style who had spent a number of years in Italy, where he thoroughly absorbed the Italian style of painting. His trip to Italy coincided with the brief reign of the only Dutch pope in history, Adrian VI in 1522-23. The pope made him a court painter and superintendent of his collection of antiquities. His stay in Italy lasted from 1518 to 1524. He also visited Nuremberg, Venice and Jerusalem. Venetian art had an important impact on the development of his style.
He differed from most Romanists in that he was a native of the northern Netherlands and not of Flanders and that he remained most of his life in the northern Netherlands. He settled permanently in Utrecht in 1530 and established a large workshop on the Italian model. The workshop mainly produced altarpieces, many of which were destroyed in the Reformation iconoclasm in the years just after his death. He also held clerical appointments. This did not stop him from having a long-time relationship with a mistress who may have modelled for some of his female figure. More
Eduard Karl Franz von Gebhardt, 1838-1925 Dusseldorf
Christ
Oil / paper / wood
33.8x41.2cm
Private Collection
Franz Karl Eduard von Gebhardt (1838–1925) was a Baltic German historical painter. He was born in Järva-Jaani, Estonia, the son of a Protestant clergyman, and studied first at the Academy of St. Petersburg (1855–58). In 1860 he became the pupil of Wilhelm Sohn at Düsseldorf, where he permanently settled, and became professor at the academy in 1873.
There is a religious tone defining many of his most highly regarded paintings. Their chief characteristic is their deep and powerful yet varied expression of religious feeling. In the former Cistercian monastery at Lokkum may be seen six mural paintings: "Scenes from the Life of Christ". Mural paintings of similar subjects may be found at the Friedenskirche, Düsseldorf.
Gebhardt also painted many excellent portraits, and was awarded gold medals at Berlin, Dresden, Munich, Vienna, and Paris; and was elected a member of the academies of Antwerp, Berlin, Brussels, Munich, and Vienna. He died in 1925. More
Wilhelm Claudius, 1854 Altona-1942 Dresden
Reading monk
oil / cardboard
52x42cm
Private Collection
Wilhelm Ludwig Heinrich Claudius (1854-1942) at first attended the drawing school in Hamburg. After that he studied at the Academy of Art in Dresden from 1871-74. He also successfully worked as an illustrator.
Around 1900 he rather focused on his painting and became a member of the Dresden artist circle called Goppelner Gruppe. He further participated in the exhibitions of the Dresden Secession. In 1903 he was appointed professor and in 1909 was honored with the Gold Medal of the Munich art exhibition. More
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