Friday, November 30, 2018

Classical Reliefs Rendered by Neoclassical Artists

attributed to Jean Le Pautre
Antique Relief - Frieze of Mythological Figures and Creatures
before 1682
drawing
Harvard Art Museums

Carlo Maratti after Polidoro da Caravaggio
Bas-Relief with Roman Emperor
ca. 1660
etching
Philadelphia Museum of Art

Aubert-Henri-Joseph Parent
Vase or Wine Cooler on Classical Pedestal with Relief of Putti playing with Theatrical Mask
ca. 1784
drawing
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

"Piazza Sta Maria del Pianto, Rome (1840).  A pensive study of old clothes sun-sipped dry in the Jews' quarter, hanging out of a marble architrave smashed & built into a piece of Roman frieze moldering into broken brickwork projected over wooden windows propped on gray entablature.  A vestige of yet-legible inscription: NOMINE FORTUNA.  No important lines, no beauty of object.  A pendent hodgepodge of contrasted feeling cheesecaked into picturesque febrility.  An episode.  A grief in, as it were, parenthesis.  A match without a marriage, as after news of an engagement.  A church embedded sans façade among the common sort of houses.  A succor from St Peter's mere bewilderment & worry.  Graphite heightened w/ touches of white body color on gray-green paper."

– from Brantwood Senilia, a long poem by Paul Batchelor, heavily indebted to the writings and drawings of John Ruskin (1819-1900) 

Anicet Charles Gabriel Lemonnier
Study of a Sculptural Relief in the Capitoline Gallery, Rome
ca. 1775-1800
drawing
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
(Achenbach Foundation)

Filippo Morghen
Head of Medusa after Antique Relief
ca. 1775
etching, engraving
Philadelphia Museum of Art

Stefano Mulinari after Giulio Romano
Classical Relief with Nudes, Dolphins, and Eagle
before 1790
etching
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
(Achenbach Foundation)

The Sonnets: I

His piercing pince-nez. Some dim frieze
Hands point to a dim frieze, in the dark night.
In the book of his music the corners have straightened:
Which owe their presence to our sleeping hands.
The ox-blood from the hands which play
For fire for warmth for hands for growth
Is there room in the room that you room in?
Upon his structured tomb:
Still they mean something. For the dance
And the architecture.
Weave among incidents
May be portentous to him
We are the sleeping fragments of his sky,
Wind giving presence to fragments.

– Ted Berrigan, from The Sonnets (New York: Lorenz and Ellen Gude, 1964)

Gottlieb Friedrich Riedel
Antique Relief with Diana and a Hunter
ca. 1750-80
etching
Philadelphia Museum of Art

Gottlieb Friedrich Riedel
Antique Relief with Apotheosis of Faustina
ca. 1750-80
etching
Philadelphia Museum of Art

Gottlieb Friedrich Riedel
Antique Relief with Marcus Aurelius and the Germans
ca. 1750-80
etching
Philadelphia Museum of Art

Gottlieb Friedrich Riedel
Antique Relief with Marcus Aurelius at the Tribunal
ca. 1750-80
etching
Philadelphia Museum of Art

Gottlieb Friedrich Riedel
Antique Relief with Perseus and Andromeda
ca. 1750-80
etching
Philadelphia Museum of Art

Luigi Schiavonetti
Classical Relief
1810
etching, engraving
Philadelphia Museum of Art

Anonymous French printmaker
Fragment of Ancient Bas-relief
ca. 1820
engraving
Philadelphia Museum of Art

John Samuel Agar
Bronze Relief
1834
engraving
Philadelphia Museum of Art

Frédéric Flachéron
Bas-relief from the Arch of Constantine, Rome
1849
paper negative
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

"The sculptor, medalist, and photographer Flachéron arrived at the French Academy in Rome upon winning a Prix de Rome in 1839.  He married soon after and took over his father-in-law's art supply store near the Piazza di Spagna.  After learning the waxed paper negative process in 1848, he began to sell photographic equipment and photographs.  His prints were displayed at London's Great Exhibition in 1851 and collected by prominent French artists such as Alexandre Cabanel, Hippolyte Flandrin, and Charles Garnier.  The waxing process, a modification of Talbot's calotype method, resulted in a more transparent negative, and thus sharper prints.  It became a favored medium for artists working under the conditions of intense sunlight in Rome."

– curator's notes from the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Thursday, November 29, 2018

Renaissance Drawings & Prints (Sixteenth Century)

Hans Baldung
Ecstatic Christ
ca. 1510-11
drawing
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

"The subject of this drawing is highly unusual.  Christ is represented after the Crucifixion, as the wounds on his hands and feet indicate, but in a moment before his death, his uplifted head and heavenward gaze evidently signifying a spiritual communion with God the Father.  No textual source has been identified for this unprecedented subject and it is possible it was invented by Baldung himself.  The formal source of the supine figure of Christ may lie in ancient Roman representations of dying heroes, known to Northern artists through widely circulated drawn copies."

Marco Dente
Galatea escaping Polyphemus
(from series Ancient Bas-reliefs)
ca. 1510-25
engraving
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
(Achenbach Foundation)

Giovanni Antonio da Brescia
Seated man with forked staff
ca. 1510-20
engraving
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

"It is possible that Giovanni Antonio da Brescia based this engraving on a lost drawing by Michelangelo for the figure of Obed in one of the lunettes below the Sistine ceiling (ca. 1508-1512)."

Albrecht Dürer
Cain slaying Abel
1511
woodcut
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Albrecht Dürer
David in Penitence
1510
woodcut
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Rosso Fiorentino
Bust of a woman with an elaborate coiffure
ca. 1530
drawing
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

"Rosso intended this drawing as an ideal representation of a beautiful young woman in response to the genre of teste divine (divine heads) that Michelangelo made famous in drawings of the 1520s and 1530s.  Here, Rosso invented elegant "s" shaped rhythms for the figural pose.  The woman is seen in bust-length from the back, her head turned in profile, slightly lowered, to gaze directly at the viewer, while the exquisite complexity of details of her fashionable dress soften her pose with airy curves and twists.  Her fantastic coiffure is laden with braids curled around a pair of ram's horns, while her artfully puffed-up dress, with layers of agitated drapery, is fastened on the back with a mask-like brooch.  Although minor passages are touched up with ink and the figure was silhouetted with wash at a later time, the characteristic clarity and precision o f Rosso's original drawing in chalk are plainly evident.  The delicately ornate mount and the pen inscription below, telling the colorful apocryphal story about the presumed subject of the drawing, are both due to the British collector John Talmann, who incorrectly thought this to be a portrait of Giulia Gonzaga (1513-1566), Countess of Fondi, a famous beauty of her day."

attributed to Pierre Milan after Rosso Fiorentino
Mars and Venus
ca. 1530-40
etching
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Giulio Romano
Battle of the Horatii
ca. 1538
drawing
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Francesco Salviati
Christ disputing with the Doctors in the Temple
ca. 1539
drawing
Philadelphia Museum of Art

"An important Mannerist painter, Salviati provided decorative works in fresco and oil for churches and palaces in Rome, Florence, and Venice.  The composition of this drawing is taken directly from an earlier famous monument in Florence that was created between about 1400 and 1424, one of Lorenzo Ghiberti's bronze relief panels on the doors of the city's venerable Baptistery.  , , ,  The artist took minor liberties with his model.  . . .  He added a convergence of onlookers in the background and exaggerated the pose and facial expression of Christ's mother to suggest her surprise." 

Baccio Bandinelli
Holy Family with the infant St John the Baptist
ca. 1550
drawing
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Adamo Scultori
Hercules at the cross-roads, with female personifications of Virtue and Vice
ca. 1563-65
engraving
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

attributed to Adamo Scultori
Head of Satyr
ca. 1566-80
drawing
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Nicolas Beatrizet
Bas-relief from the Arch of Constantine - Battle of the Romans with the Dacians
before 1565
engraving
Harvard Art Museums

Niccolò dell' Abate
Frieze portraying a musical party
before 1571
drawing
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

– quoted texts based on curator's notes at the respective museums

Wednesday, November 28, 2018

Embellished Objects

Roman Empire
Cup with Skeleton-figures in high relief (from Boscoreale)
1st century BC
silver
Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples

Roman Empire
Cup with Bacchic motifs in high relief
early first century AD
silver
Princeton University Art Museum

Byzantine Empire
The Rubens Vase
AD 400
agate with later gold mount
Walters Art Museum, Baltimore

"Carved in high relief from a single piece of agate, this vase was most likely created in an imperial workshop for a Byzantine emperor.  It made its way to France, probably carried off as treasure after the sack of Constantinople in 1204 during the Fourth Crusade, where it passed through the hands of some of the most renowned collectors of western Europe, including the Dukes of Anjou and King Charles V.  In 1615 the vase was purchased by the great Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens.  A drawing that he made of it is now in Saint Petersburg at the Hermitage.  The subsequent fate of the vase before the 19th century is obscure.  The gold mount around its rim is struck with a French gold-standard mark used ca. 1809-1819.  A similar late Roman agate vessel, the Waddesdon Vase or Cellini Vase [directly below], is now in the British Museum."

Roman Empire
The Waddesdon Vase or The Cellini Vase
AD 400
agate with later enameled-gold mounts
British Museum

Anonymous Chinese and French artisans
Bowl with relief pattern of flowering prunus
ca. 1720-30 (bowl), mid-18th century (mounts)
Chinese porcelain, with French ormolu mounts
Walters Art Museum, Baltimore

Anonymous German artisans
Finial with ivy and acanthus motifs
ca. 1250
gilding on silver-plated copper with inlays of niello on silver
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Anonymous European aritsans
Drawstring Bag
ca. 1780-1820
gold wire mesh, seed pearls
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Anonymous Italian artisans
Liturgical Fan (Flabellum)
12th century
tempera on vellum
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

"Ecclesiastical ornament.  Painted vellum plaited to form a circle, bands at center and edge, flowers in blues and reds on both sides.  Ivory handle, buttons at center, set with tiny plaques of mother-of-pearl and nielloed silver gilt."

René Lalique
Pansy Brooch
ca. 1903
glass, enameled-gold, sapphire
Walters Art Museum, Baltimore

"Henry Walters bought this piece from Lalique in 1904 at the World's Fair in St Louis, Missouri.  Due to its sheer size and delicacy, the Pansy Brooch, like many of Lalique's other floral jewelry creations, was probably never intended to be worn."  

Anonymous Dutch artisans
Console Table
ca. 1650-75
carved linden-wood legs, marble top
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Anonymous German artisans
Carnet de bal
ca. 1760
mother-of-pearl, ivory, gold
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

"Gold-mounted mother-of-pearl carnet de bal [for dance cards] of shaped outline, carved in relief with C-scrolls, rocaille and foliage.  Appliqué in gold with crowned eagle, recumbent lion and birds.  Appliqué on reverse with a crowned eagle holding a sword on a globe and stand.  With the original pencil and with four shaped ivory swiveling cards that conceal a mirror panel.  One card is inscribed Fais bien et laisse dire! [i.e., behave well and then let them talk].  The coats-of-arms are possibly those of William II of Prussia.  In 1938 this object belonged to Alphonse and Clarice de Rothschild of Vienna, where it was confiscated by Nazi forces.  Recovered by Allied forces about 1947-50 and returned to Clarice de Rothschild in New York.  By descent to her daughter, Bettina Looram de Rothschild (1924-2012).  Gift of the heirs of Bettina Looram de Rothschild to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston."  

Anonymous French artisans
Pencil with Flowers
ca. 1750-1800
beadwork (sablé)
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Roman Empire
Trapezophoros with Winged Griffins
1st century BC
marble
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

"This marble trapezophoros is one of pair of supports for a large tabletop that probably stood in the atrium of a wealthy family's house.  Its two sides are finely carved with grape vines and floral sprays issuing from acanthus fronds.  At either end of the support, the head and torso of a winged griffin emerge from a feline leg.  They form a striking contrast to the delicate floral decoration with their deep relief and powerful musculature, thereby solidly grounding what must have been a monumental piece of furniture."

Anonymous Armenian artisans
Volume of the Gospels
(no date given)
tooled leather binding with metal plaques over wooden boards
Walters Art Museum, Baltimore

– quoted texts based on curator's notes at the respective museums

Tuesday, November 27, 2018

John La Farge (1835-1910) as Collected in Boston

John La Farge
Study for Decorative Panel
ca. 1875-1900
watercolor
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

John La Farge
Study for Stained Glass Window
ca. 1875-1900
watercolor
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

John La Farge
Study for Skylight
ca. 1875-1900
watercolor
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

John La Farge
Peonies Blowing in the Wind (window)
1886
glass and lead
(created for London studio of Lawrence Alma-Tadema)
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

John La Farge
Fish and Flowering Branch (window)
ca. 1890
glass and lead
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

John La Farge
Butterflies and Foliage (window)
1889
glass and lead
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

"John La Farge was the eldest child in a family of urbane, affluent French immigrants who had earlier settled in New York City.  He was born in 1835, and his education was thorough, with attention to literature, French, and Roman Catholicism.  He received drawing lessons from his grandfather and training in watercolor technique from an unknown English artist.  Initially, though, he saw his artistic practice only as an avocation, a diversion during his teenage years at Mount Saint Mary's College in Maryland and Saint John's College in New York.  Afterwards, he studied law in New York City, while experimenting with oil painting."

"By 1856, however, La Farge had left for Paris, where his family connections helped to secure his introduction to that city's elite literary and artistic circles.  Indeed, his later career would be marked by its preoccupation with sometimes esoteric intellectual and aesthetic matters.  While abroad, he traveled in northern Europe, copied the Old Masters, and spent a few weeks in the studio of Thomas Couture.  The illness of his father, however, necessitated his return to the United States.  After briefly taking up the study of law again in 1857, he rented a studio (which he maintained for the rest of his career) in New York's Tenth Street studio building, where he met the building's architect Richard Morris Hunt.  This was the likely impetus for La Farge's decision in 1859 to travel to Newport, Rhode Island, and study painting with the architect's brother, William Morris Hunt."

"La Farge married Margaret Perry in 1860, and for most of the rest of his career, his family life was centered in Rhode Island.  In this seminal period of the late 1860s he cultivated an interest in Japanese art and explored a highly personal style of still-life and plein-air landscape painting.  His wide interests eventually led him to innovations in other media as well.  By 1875, for example, he was working in stained glass, and a year later, he directed the decorative program for Trinity Church, Boston, designed by the architect H.H. Richardson.  La Farge became a leader in the mural movement, and his commissions for churches, government buildings, and opulent private homes were a welcome source of income in later years.  This work usually kept him in Boston or New York, however, separated from his family.  . . .  Nearly always in need of money to pay the many employees required for his glass and mural projects, he found that his writing helped cover these mounting bills.  He was also known as a lecturer on art matters, although this great variety of activities became increasingly taxing in his final years.  He continued to take on large commissions, however, even as his fragile health and fiscal insolvency became critical."

 – from the artist's biography published in the Systematic Catalogue of the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

John La Farge
Mural Design - Angels representing Adoration
ca. 1890-1900
watercolor
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

John La Farge
Mural Design - Angels representing Praise
ca. 1890-1900
watercolor
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

John La Farge
Mural Design - Angels representing Thanksgiving
ca. 1890-1900
watercolor
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

John La Farge
Mural Design - Angels representing Love
ca. 1890-1900
watercolor
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

John La Farge
Angel and Magdalene
ca. 1890
watercolor
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

John La Farge
The Three Wise Men
1878
oil on canvas
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

John La Farge
Woman bending down Branch
ca. 1881
oil on canvas
(study for Cornelius Vanderbilt house, New York)
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

John La Farge
Moonlit Seascape
ca. 1883
watercolor
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston