Wednesday, March 22, 2017

Surplus Industrial Wealth Transformed into Baroque Paintings

Francesco Stringa
Allegorical Still-life with Portrait bust of 
Francesco I d'Este, Duke of Modena, by Gianlorenzo Bernini
ca. 1680
oil on canvas
Minneapolis Institute of Art

Gabriël Metsu
Portrait of Lucia Wijbrants
1667
oil on panel
Minneapolis Institute of Art

These beautifully-preserved and florid 17th-century paintings are reproduced from museum collections in the one-time hugely prosperous industrial cities dotted around the Great Lakes in the middle of the U.S.  namely, Minneapolis, Toledo, Indianapolis, Detroit, Cincinnati, and Chicago. Tycoons imported European canvases from the prestigious past to decorate their late-19th and early-20th century mansions, eventually bequeathing many very good pictures to the new public culture-palaces that had risen to ornament and substantiate their cities.

Anthony van Dyck
Betrayal of Christ
ca. 1630
oil on canvas
Minneapolis Institute of Art

Peter Paul Rubens
Union of England and Scotland
1633-34
oil on panel
Minneapolis Institute of Art

Peter Paul Rubens
Crowning of St Catherine
1631
oil on canvas
Toledo Museum of Art

Mattia Preti
Feast of Herod
ca. 1656-61
oil on canvas
Toledo Museum of Art

Jan Miense Molenaer
Allegory of Vanity
1633
oil on canvas
Toledo Museum of Art

Jan Miense Molenaer
Battle between Carnival and Lent
ca. 1633-34
oil on panel
Indianapolis Museum of Art

Jusepe de Ribera
Aristotle
1632
oil on canvas
Indianapolis Museum of Art

Giovanni Francesco Romanelli
Finding of Moses
1656-67
oil on canvas
Indianapolis Museum of Art

Frans Pourbus the Younger
Portrait of Giovanni Battista Marino,
poet and early patron of Nicolas Poussin

ca. 1621
oil on canvas
Detroit Institute of Arts

Anthony van Dyck
Portrait of a military commander of the Spinola family
ca. 1621-27
oil on canvas
Cincinnati Art Museum

Rembrandt
Old man wearing a gold chain
1631
oil on panel
Art Institute of Chicago

Cecco del Caravaggio
The Resurrection
ca. 1619-20
oil on canvas
Art Institute of Chicago