Raffaello (1483-1520) Il sogno del cavaliere (Vision of a Knight) c.1504 Oil on poplar, 17.1 x 17.3 cm National Gallery, London This painting was inspired by a passage in the Punica, an epic poem by Silius Italicus (AD 25–101) recounting the…
Raffaello (1483-1520) L’orazione nell’Orto (The Agony in the Garden) c.1504–1505 Oil on wood, 24.1 x 28.9 cm Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York This panel was originally part of the base (predella) of the Colonna Altarpiece (Pala Colonna). This panel was…
Renoir, Pierre-Auguste (1841-1919) Jeune fille endormie au chat (Sleeping Girl with a cat) 1880 Oil on canvas, 120.3 x 91.9 cm Clark Art Institute, Williamstown A young woman dozes in a chair, her striped stockings and plain skirt suggesting her humble background.…
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…
Rousseau, Henri (1844-1910) La Bohémienne endormie (The Sleeping Gypsy) 1897 Oil on canvas, 129.5 x 200.7 cm Museum of Modern Art, New York
Rousseau, Henri (1844-1910) Le Rêve (The Dream) 1910 Oil on canvas, 204.5 x 298.5 cm Museum of Modern Art, New York “The woman asleep on the couch is dreaming she has been transported into the forest, listening to the sounds from the…
Vermeer, Jan (1632-1675) A Maid Asleep (Slapend meisje) 1656–1657 Oil on canvas, 87.6 x 76.5 cm Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York The misbehavior of unsupervised maidservants was a common subject for seventeenth-century Dutch painters. Yet in his depiction of a…
Mantegna, Andrea (c.1431-1506) Orazione nell’orto (Agony in the Garden) c.1455–1456 Egg tempera on wood, 62.9 × 80 cm National Gallery, London Christ is shown in prayer. Aware that his disciple Judas had betrayed him, he left Jerusalem and took refuge in…
Bruegel the Elder, Pieter (c.1525-1569) The Dormition of the Virgin c.1564 Oil on panel, 67.7 x 85.3 x 12.6 cm Upton House and Gardens, England This ‘grisaille’, or grey monochrome painting, shows the death of the Virgin, attended by the…
Caravaggio (1571-1610) Amorino dormiente (Sleeping Cupid) 1608 Oil on canvas, 72 x 105 cm Galleria Palatina, Firenze In classical antiquity Cupid, the god of love, was always depicted as a young boy armed with bow and arrows. Such images were known as…