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…
Tiziano (c.1488-1576) Ecce Homo 1543 Oil on canvas, 242 x 361 cm Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna Signature: Referenced bottom center of the note: TITIANVS EQVES CES F. 1543 The scene was rarely depicted in Italy, but is probably explained by the Flemish origin…
Zurbarán, Francisco de (1598-1664) Cristo crucificado, con un pintor (The Crucified Christ with a Painter) c.1650 Oil on canvas, 105 x 84 cm Museo del Prado, Madrid A painter devoutly contemplates the almost-sculptural figure of Christ on the Cross, which stands…
Manet, Édouard (1832-1883) La Nymphe surprise (The Surprised Nymph) 1861 Oil on canvas, 144.5 x 112.5 cm Museo de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires Compare: Manet, Édouard (1832-1883) Étude pour La nymphe surprise 1861 Private collection Manet, Édouard (1832-1883) Nymphe surprise…
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…
Murillo, Bartolomé Esteban (1617-1682) Crucifixión (Crucifixion) c.1675 Oil on canvas, 50.8 x 33 cm Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York This oil sketch helped Murillo to prepare a large painting that is today in the Museo del Prado in Madrid. The artist’s…
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,…
Velázquez, Diego (1599-1660) El dios Marte (Mars, God of War) c.1638 Oil on canvas, 179 x 95 cm Museo del Prado, Madrid The first documentation of Diego Velazquez‘s Mars is from 1701–03, when it appeared in the inventory of paintings…