Botticelli, Sandro (c.1445-1510) Primavera (Allegory of Spring) c.1480 Tempera on panel, 207 x 319 cm Galleria degli Uffizi, Firenze This painting, usually known as the Primavera [or ‘Spring’] shows nine figures from classic mythology advancing over a flowery lawn in a grove…
Renoir, Pierre-Auguste (1841-1919) La fin du déjeuner (After the Luncheon) 1879 Oil on canvas, 101 x 81 cm Städel Museum, Frankfurt In the arbour of a Parisian restaurant, an abundant meal is drawing to a close. The actress Ellen Andrée has taken…
Renoir, Pierre-Auguste (1841-1919) Diane chasseresse (Diana) 1867 Oil on canvas, 199.5 x 129.5 cm National Gallery of Art, Washington Renoir wrote that he had produced this painting as a study of a nude, the sort of exercise that was a mainstay of…
Tissot, James (1836-1902) Portrait de jeune femme / Berthe (Portrait of a young woman / Berthe) c.1883 Graphite pencil, pastel and paper on canvas, 73 x 59 cm Petit Palais, Paris
Tissot, James (1836-1902) Summer (‘Portrait’) 1876 Oil on canvas, 91.4 x 50.8 cm Tate Britain, London James Tissot is deliberately ambiguous here, inviting us to interpret it. His model, Miss Lloyd, stands at the entrance of a billiards’ room, a space…
Tissot, James (1836-1902) Le pont du HMS Calcutta, Portsmouth (Gallery of HMS Calcutta) c.1876 Oil on canvas, 68.6 x 91.8 cm Tate Britain, London Tissot often painted a man with two women in order to explore the subtle nuances of flirtation…
Vermeer, Jan (1632-1675) The Concert (Het concert) 1663–1666 Oil on canvas, 72.5 x 64.7 cm Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston In a pristine domestic parlor, two women and a man concentrate on making music. The standing woman holds a sheet of…
Renoir, Pierre-Auguste (1841-1919) La promenade (The Walk) 1870 Oil on canvas, 81.3 x 64.8 cm Getty Center, Los Angeles What Pierre-Auguste Renoir himself titled this painting is unknown, but La Promenade is in part an homage to earlier artists whom he greatly…
Gauguin, Paul (1848-1903) Femmes de Tahiti, ou Sur la plage (Tahitian Women on the Beach) 1891 Oil on canvas, 69 x 91.5 cm Musée d’Orsay, Paris In 1891, Gauguin went to Tahiti, an island he imagined to be a primitive paradise. The…
Bouguereau, William-Adolphe (1825-1905) Naissance de Vénus (Birth of Venus) 1879 Oil on canvas, 300 x 215 cm Musée d’Orsay, Paris