Poussin, Nicolas (1594-1665) Bacchanale (Bacchanal) 1625–1626 Oil on canvas, 122 x 169 cm Museo del Prado, Madrid This is a traditional scene from the iconography of Bacchus, the Roman god of wine. It depicts his meeting with Ariadne on the island…
Lotto, Lorenzo (1480-1557) San Girolamo penitente (Penitent Saint Jerome) 1546 Oil on canvas, 99 x 90 cm Museo del Prado, Madrid Lorenzo Lotto‘s various depictions of the penitent Saint Jerome span early versions influenced by Albrecht Dürer and Giovanni Bellini (Musée…
Géricault, Théodore (1791-1824) Diane (Diana) Early 19th century Wash, pen on paper, 17.3 x 12 cm Museo del Prado, Madrid The composition is almost identical, with the same dimensions, to a Venus disarming Cupid (New York, Sotheby’s, January 28, 2015, n.…
Raffaello (1483-1520) Studio di una donna seduta (Studies of a Seated Female, Child’s Head, and Three Studies of a Baby) c.1507–1508 Metalpoint, 12 x 15.3 cm Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland This drawing is from Raphael’s “pink sketchbook,” comprised of ten…
Picasso, Pablo (1881-1973) La Vie (Life) 1903 Oil on canvas, 196.5 x 129.2 cm Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland In 1901, depressed over the suicide of a close friend, Picasso launched into the melancholic paintings of his Blue period (1901–4). Only…
Perugino (c.1446-1523) San Sebastiano (Saint Sebastian) c.1493 Metalpoint, 25.6 x 14.6 cm Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland The Florentine painter Perugino made drawings to record figural types and poses that could be repeated throughout his finished paintings. He used the elegant,…
Munch, Edvard (1863-1944) The Sin (Woman with Red Hair and Green Eyes) 1901 Color lithograph, 69.8 x 40.2 cm Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland The fatal women and embracing couples in Picasso’s art of the early 1900s exhibit striking affinities with…
Manet, Édouard (1832-1883) Olympia 1867 Etching Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland Manet‘s model, Victorine Meurent, was herself a successful painter who showed her work at Paris‘s salon. When Edouard Manet’s painting Olympia was exhibited in Paris in 1865, it was met by…
Ingres, Jean Auguste Dominique (1780-1867) Persée et Andromède (Perseus and Andromeda) c.1819 Oil on canvas, 19.7 × 16.2 cm Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit Ingres‘s vulnerable figure of Andromeda is the “classic” idealized figure study. The fact that she is being…
Parmigianino (1503-1540) Cupido che fabbrica l’arco (Bowcarving Cupid) 1534–1539 Oil on lime, 135.5 × 65 cm Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna The inspiration for this painting may have come from a sculpture that Parmigianino may have seen in the Grimani Collection in Venice in…