Degas, Edgar (1834-1917) La classe de danse (The Dance Class) 1873–1876 Oil on canvas, 85.5 x 75 cm Musée d’Orsay, Paris Degas regularly went to the Paris opera house, not only as a member of the audience, but as a visitor…
Raffaello (1483-1520) Piccola Madonna Cowper (Small Cowper Madonna) c.1505 Oil on panel, 59.5 x 44 cm National Gallery of Art, Washington A woman and nude child, both with pale skin, sit in front of a deep landscape in this vertical painting.…
Raffaello (1483-1520) Consegna delle chiavi del Regno (Christ’s Charge to Peter) c.1515–1516 Bodycolour over charcoal underdrawing on paper, mounted on canvas, 344 x 534 Victoria and Albert Museum, London Acquired by the Prince of Wales, future King Charles I in 1623…
Raffaello (1483-1520) Estasi di Santa Cecilia (Ecstasy of St. Cecilia) c.1513 Oil transferred from panel to canvas, 236 x 149 cm Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna Performed around 1513 for the chapel of Blessed Elena Duglioli, who had built her own image of…
Raffaello (1483-1520) Le Tre Grazie (The Three Graces) c.1504–1505 Oil on panel, 17 x 17 cm Musée Condé, Chantilly This is one of the smallest paintings by the master and the only secular work from Raphael‘s Florentine period, before 1508, still under…
Raffaello (1483-1520) La Fornarina (Portrait of a Young Woman) c.1520 Oil on panel, 87 x 63 cm Palazzo Barberini, Roma The subject of this portrait, according to tradition, was Raphael’s inspirational muse and mistress: Margherita Luti, the daughter of a baker in…
Raffaello (1483-1520) Pietà c.1503–1505 Oil on poplar panel, 23.6 x 28.8 cm Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston Not satisfied with a single Raphael painting, Isabella Stewart Gardner waited just two years before purchasing her second work by the artist. This small panel,…
Michelangelo (1475-1564) Tondo Doni (The Holy Family) 1505–1506 Tempera grassa on wood, diameter 120 cm Galleria degli Uffizi, Firenze Michelangelo painted this Holy Family for a Florentine merchant, Agnolo Doni, whose prestigious marriage to Maddalena Strozzi in 1504 took place in…
Michelangelo (1475-1564) Battaglia dei centauri (Battle of the Centaurs) 1490–1492 Marble bas-relief, 84.5 x 88 cm Casa Buonarroti, Firenze The earliest mention of the Battle of the Centaurs is to be found in a letter written in…