Tuesday, April 12, 2016

17th-century Painted Draperies as Blocks of Harmonized Color

Luca Giordano
The Song of the Prophetess Maria
ca. 1687
Prado

A yellow-coated pomegranate, figs like lizards' necks,
   a handful of half-rosy part-ripe grapes,
a quince all delicate-downed and fragrant-fleeced,
   a walnut winking out from its green shell,
a cucumber with the bloom on it pouting from its leaf-bed,
   and a ripe gold-coated olive  dedicated
to Priapus friend of travellers, by Lamon the gardener,
   begging strength for his limbs and his trees.

 inscription by the Hellenistic poet Philip, resident in Rome, from a collection published in Greek around AD 40, translated by Edwin Morgan and quoted in The Oxford Book of Classical Verse in Translation edited by Adrian Poole & Jeremy Maule, 1995

Anthony van Duck
The Lamentation
ca. 1635
Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp

Laurent de La Hyre
Allegory of Grammar
1650
National Gallery, London

Guercino
The Cumaean Sibyl with Putto
1651
National Gallery, London

Guercino
Angel appearing to Hagar and Ishmael
1652-53
National Gallery, London

Francisco de Zurbarán
Allegory of-Charity
ca. 1655
Prado

Bernardo Strozzi
Personification of Fame
1635-36
National Gallery, London

Eustahce Le Sueur
Three Muses - Melpomene, Erato, Polyhymnia
ca. 1652-55
Louvre

Eustache Le Sueur
Three Muses - Clio. Euterpe, Thalia
ca. 1652-55
Louvre

French painter
Personification of Summer
17th century
Prado

French painter
Personification of Spring
17th century
Prado

Philippe de Champaigne
Dream of St Joseph
1642-43
National Gallery, London

Bernardo Cavallino
Triumph of Galatea
ca. 1650
National Gallery of Art (U.S.)

workshop of Bernardo Cavallino
St Catherine of Alexandria
17th century
Metropolitan Museum of Art