Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792) Self-Portrait c.1775 Oil on canvas, 73.7 x 61 cm Tate Britain, London This is one of Reynolds‘s most explicit attempts to rival Rembrandt as a self-portraitist. By the time he painted this work, he was the most famous…
Redon, Odilon (1840-1916) Violette Heymann 1910 Pastel on gray wove paper, 72 x 92 cm Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland Although he was known early in his career for works primarily in black and white, such as charcoal drawings and lithographs,…
Munch, Edvard (1863-1944) The Sick Child (Det syke barn) 1907 Oil on canvas, 118.7 x 121 cm Tate Britain, London The Sick Child draws upon Munch’s memory of his sister Sophie’s death from tuberculosis at the age of fifteen. The model…
Morisot, Berthe (1841-1895) Jeune femme au divan (Girl on a Divan) c.1885 Oil on canvas, 61 x 50.2 cm Tate Britain, London The artist’s grandson Denis Rouart writes (9 October 1969): ‘This painting was sold by my mother direct to Vollard…
Moore, Henry (1898-1986) Girl 1931 Ancaster stone, 86.5 x 60 x 43.3 cm (including base and wooden board) Tate Britain, London From the mid-1920s Moore had advocated the abolition of the ‘Greek ideal’ in sculpture in favour of non-European sources, which…
Magritte, René (1898-1967) L’Esprit de géométrie (The Spirit of Geometry) 1937 Gouache on paper, 37.5 × 29.2 cm Tate Britain, London Magritte exchanges the heads of a mother and a baby – compressing one and enlarging the other. The effect is…
Bernini, Gian Lorenzo (1598-1680) Busto del Duca Francesco I d’Este (Bust of Duke Francesco I d’Este) 1650–1651 Marble, 80 x 106 x 50 cm Galleria Estense, Modena In this famous marble, the effigy of Francis I stands out as a manifesto of…
Velázquez, Diego (1599-1660) Retrato de Francisco I de Este (Portrait of Duke Francesco I d’Este) 1638 Oil on canvas, 68 x 51 cm Galleria Estense, Modena In 1638 Duke Francesco I d’Este undertook a diplomatic trip to the court of King Philip…
Guercino (1591-1666) Venere, Marte e Amore (Venus, Mars and Cupid) 1633 Oil on canvas, 139 x 161 cm Galleria Estense, Modena Following the indication of Venus, whose right hand is painted almost in a trompe l’oeil, Cupid is about to…
Bouguereau, William-Adolphe (1825-1905) L’enlèvement de Psyché (The Abduction of Psyche) 1895 Oil on canvas, 209 x 120 cm Private collection See also: • Apuleius (c.124-c.170): Psyche et Cupido (Latin)