Giordano, Luca (1634-1705) Allegoria della Fortezza (Allegory of Fortitude) early 1680s Oil on canvas, 95 x 99.2 cm National Gallery, London This modello, or detailed oil study, is one of a group of 12 – ten of which are in the National Gallery’s…
Andrea del Sarto (1486-1530) San Giovanni Battista (Saint John the Baptist) c.1523 Oil on panel, 94 × 68 cm Galleria Palatina, Palazzo Pitti, Firenze By choosing to depict the sculpted figure of a young Saint John the Baptist standing out against a…
Parmigianino (1503-1540) Visione di san Girolamo (Vision of Saint Jerome) 1526–1527 Oil on poplar, 342.9 x 148.6 cm National Gallery, London This altarpiece is the greatest work that Parmigianino painted in Rome. It was commissioned by Maria Bufolina for a burial…
Carracci, Annibale (1560-1609) Sileno che raccoglie l’uva (Silenus gathering Grapes) 1597–1600 Oil and egg on wood, 54.5 x 88.5 cm National Gallery, London Using an animal skin, two laughing satyrs with pointed ears and short tails – although without the usual hairy…
Tiziano (c.1488-1576) Ninfa e pastore (Nymph and shepherd) c.1570–1575 Oil on canvas, 149.6 × 187 cm Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna The theme on which the picture is based has not yet been satisfactorily clarified, but Titian raised it to the mythical level…
Caillebotte, Gustave (1848-1894) Poulets, gibier à plumes et lièvres (Chickens, Game Birds, and Hares) c.1882 Oil on canvas, 76 x 105 cm Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland Caillebotte balanced the notion of the wild with the orderly in this painting, as…
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…
Whistler, James Abbott McNeill (1834-1903) Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl 1861–1863, 1872 Oil on canvas, 213 x 107.9 cm National Gallery of Art, Washington When Whistler submitted The White Girl to the Paris Salon in 1863, the tradition–bound…
Caravaggio (1571-1610) San Giovanni Battista (John the Baptist) c.1604 Oil on canvas, 172.5 x 104.5 cm Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City