Sunday, July 9, 2017

Watercolors across the Centuries

Lucas Cranach the Elder
Two Dead Bohemian Waxwings
ca. 1530
watercolor
Kupferstichkabinett, Dresden

Isaac Oliver
Party in the open air - Allegory on conjugal love
ca. 1590-95
miniature watercolor and gouache on vellum
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

Those winds which rend the oaks and plough the seas,
   Great Jove can, if he please,
   With one commanding nod appease.
   Seek not to know to morrow's doom;
   That is not ours, which is to come:
   The present moment's all our store;
      The next should Heaven allow,
      Then this will be no more:
So all our life is but one instant now.
      Look on each day you've past
   To be a mighty treasure won;
And lay each moment out in haste;
      We're sure to live too fast,
      And cannot live too soon.
   Youth doth a thousand pleasures bring,
   Which from decrepit age will fly;
The flowers that flourish in the spring,
   In winter's cold embraces die.

 from an Ode of Horace, translated by William Congreve (1670-1729)

Pietro de' Pietri
St Clement giving the veil to St Flavia Domitilla
ca. 1710-16
watercolor
Royal Collection, Windsor

Anonymous Spanish Fan-maker
Fan with painted theatrical scenes and mask
1740s
watercolor on  paper, ivory sticks
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Asmus Jakob Carstens
Philoctetes aiming the bow of Hercules at Odysseus
1790
watercolor
Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin

Eduard Bendemann
Gymnastic Games
ca. 1838
watercolor
Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf

Andrew Plimer
Miniature portrait of a woman
ca. 1785
watercolor on ivory
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Édouard Manet
Boy carrying a tray
1860-61
watercolor and gouache
Phillips Collection, Washington DC

Eugène Delacroix
Royal Tiger
before 1863
watercolor
Morgan Library, New York

Honoré Daumier
The Amateurs
ca. 1865-68
watercolor
Walters Art Museum, Baltimore

Eugène Boudin
Beach Scene
1865
watercolor
Musée d'art moderne André Malraux, Le Havre

Gustave Moreau
Song of Songs
1893
watercolor
Ohara Museum of Art, Kurashiki, Japan

What then in life, which soon must end,
Can all our vain designs intend?
From shore to shore why should we run,
When none his tiresome self can shun?

 from an Ode of Horace, translated by Thomas Otway (1652-1685)

Egon Schiele
Self-portrait with eyelid pulled down
1910
watercolor
Albertina, Vienna

Egon Schiele
Nude self-portrait grimacing
before 1918
watercolor
Albertina, Vienna