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…
Canova, Antonio (1757-1822) Amore e Psiche (Cupid and Psyche) 1800–1803 Marble, h. 148 cm Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg Entered the Hermitage in 1815; previously in the collection of Jósephine de Beauharnais in the Castle of Malmaison near Paris. By the end…
Canova, Antonio (1757-1822) Amore e Psiche (Cupid and Psyche) 1796 Marble, 148 x 172 cm Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg The theories of Neoclassicism, formulated in the works of the German scholar and philosopher Johann Joachim Winckelmann, were vividly embodied in the…
Canova, Antonio (1757-1822) Amore e Psiche in piedi (Cupid and Psyche Standing) c.1797 Marble, height: 145.1 cm; width: 63 cm; depth: 56 cm; diameter: 74 cm Musée du Louvre, Paris See also: • Apuleius (c.124-c.170): Psyche et Cupido (Latin)
Canova, Antonio (1757-1822) Amore e Psiche che si abbracciano (Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss) 1787–1793 Marble, 155 x 168 cm Musée du Louvre, Paris See also: • Apuleius (c.124-c.170): Psyche et Cupido (Latin)
Velázquez, Diego (1599-1660) Venus del Espejo (Venus at her Mirror, The Rokeby Venus) 1647–1651 Oil on canvas, 122.5 x 177 cm National Gallery, London This is the only surviving female nude painted by Velázquez. The subject was rare in seventeenth-century Spain,…
Tiziano (c.1488-1576) Le tre età dell’uomo (The Three Ages of Man) 1512–1514 Oil on canvas, 90 x 150.7 cm Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh This early work depicts the three stages of life: infancy, adulthood and old age. Cupid clambers over the sleeping…
Fontana, Lavinia (1552-1614) Minerva in atto di abbigliarsi (Minerva Dressing) 1613 Oil on canvas, 258 x 190 cm Galleria Borghese, Roma The work, which dates back to 1613, was painted in Rome, evoked here through the dome of St. Peter’s visible…
Vermeer, Jan (1632-1675) A Young Woman Standing at a Virginal (Staande Virginaalspeelster) c.1670–1672 Oil on canvas, 51.7 x 45.2 cm National Gallery, London A young woman standing at a keyboard holds our eye with a direct gaze. Suffused in the light…
Vermeer, Jan (1632-1675) Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window (Brieflezend meisje bij het venster) c.1657–1659 Oil on canvas, 83 x 64.5 cm Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden