The famous Flemish painter is portrayed almost full-length, sitting in a chair and wearing red robes and a fur coat. This landscape painter and contemporary of Van Dyck had no left arm, which is clearly shown, rather than hidden, in this portrait. In keeping with the Northern tradition of portraiture established by Anthonis Mor (1519-1576) and Adriaen Willem Key (1515/1520 - 1568), Van Dyck places
The painting is a copy with variations of an original by Jan van Eyck (Turin Museum). It is vertical in format instead of horizontal and has a landscape adapted to the taste of the period. The lower horizon line allows the artist to represent a town on the left and, behind it, some rocks which evoke Patinir’s works.
This composition retains the structure of traditional triptychs, but the landscape links the three panels together to form a single scene, thus including the pilgrim-donor and Saint Ursula in the Mystic Marriage. The landscape includes scenes relating to the respective figures: walking pilgrims, the martyrdom of Saint Catherine, the Massacre of the Innocents and the Flight into Egypt.
Christ gives the keys to Saint Peter, symbolising the latter’s authority over the Church, observed by three young women identified with the theological Virtues:Charity, in a white tunic, Faith in a violet one, and Hope, in green. Active in Venice, Catena strongly emphasised the shadowed forms of Saint Peter and Charity against the bright background.
This panel and its pair Saint Onuphrius (P07947), must originally have formed part of a more complex structure probably produced during the artist’s last years in Valencia or his first years in Cuenca. This dating is suggested by the looser, more painterly technique, and by the use of a lighter, more diluted pigment which emphasizes the fullness of the forms. The handling of space is characteristi
Mary is depicted over half-length, standing with her child in her arms, beside an arch with gothic tracery and landscape in the background. The Christ Child plays with the coral beads of a rosary his mother wears, but he looks out at the viewer, rather than at her. This detail, along with Mary´s pensive expression and the flowers in the vase, alludes to the future passion of Christ, which th
According to the Latin inscription on the back of this panel, which attributes it to Jan Gossaert, it was acquired by the magistrate of Louvain in 1588 from that city’s Augustinian monks. It was intended as a gift of thanks to Philip II for having waived the taxes and tariffs owed by the inhabitants of Louvain for twelve years after that city was decimated by the plague in 1578. Seeking to give th
This is the right wing of the Genealogy of the Virgin altarpiece which the Count of Barajas donated to Philip II, according to the inventory of the Alcazar of Madrid of 1600. On the reverse, Saint Bernard of Siena appears in grisaille. The painter represents Zechariah, John the Baptist´s father, in an enclosed garden, employing the squat proportions which are characteristic of this word.
Philip II (r. 1556-98) was Titian´s most important patron, and together they forged one of the most fruitful artistic relationships of the European Renaissance. Philip surpassed all of the Venetian painter´s previous patrons both in the number of commissions and in their variety. Unlike his father, Emperor Charles V (r. 1519-56), Philip was not satisfied with only portraits and devotional works; h
Bosch thus shows how man, irrespective of his social class or place of origin, is so possessed by the desire to enjoy and acquire material possessions that he allows himself to be deceived or seduced by the Devil. Thus the artist proposes that we should renounce earthly goods and the delights of the senses in order to avoid eternal damnation. The painting offers an exemplum of a different type to
Outside of Rome and Florence, no painter was as decisive in the formulation of painting´s classical language as Corregio. His youth, before his stay in Rome in 1518 and 1519, cannot be understood without Mantegna and Leonardo da Vinci, whose influence can be seen in the present work, painted in Parma between 1515 and 1517. The classical appearance of the Virgin´s sandals comes from Mantegna, while
A more than half-length image of the Virgin over a gold background. She holds the Christ Child while two angels crown her as Queen of Heaven. The thistles the Christ Child plays with are a clear allusion to the crown of thorns and the Passion of Christ. The Virgin´s thoughtful mien, gazing at her son with a presentiment of his destiny, gives the painting a melancholy air. The gold background was u
Jacopo Basilio commissioned this painting for the Monastery of Santa Maria dello Spasimo in Palermo, from which it derives its popular name, lo Spasimo di Sicilia (“The Wonder of Sicily”), which reflects Raphael´s interest in the depiction of extreme physical and psychological states. This work´s rhetorical tone and complex yet clear composition around two diagonals that converge on the figure of
The Museo del Prado has two paintings of this Gospel episode (Matthew 27: 32-33; Mark 21-22; Luke 23: 26-27) which narrates how Simon of Cyrene had to carry the cross for the exhausted Christ on the way to Golgotha. Although they were painted only five years apart, the paintings show obvious stylistic and conceptual differences.The earlier of the two (P439) has stronger narrative drive and shows C
Saint Anthony, whom the artist has been able to place in the immediate foreground of this panel by using a landscape format, closely resembles the saint depicted in the Saint Anthony triptych in Lisbon; he is wearing the same habit, the distinctive cape bearing the Tau cross and the customary rosary with a little bell. This large-scale figure, occupying most of the available space on the left of t
The Virgin Mary, turned slightly to the right, has her hands clasped in an imploring attitude, her gaze absent and her eyes flooded with tears. She wears a bluish-green robe, a violet tunic and a white coif. The iconography of the Mater Dolorosa does not appear in the gospels, but is a creation that emerges from the exaltation of pathos at the end of the Middle Ages. Nevertheless, the episode alwa
In her hand, Mary holds a pear, one of the fruits of Paradise, which presents her as the new Eve. The Christ Child sits on her knees and plays with its opposite, a rosary that alludes to the Passion. Saint John, as a boy, stands behind a column, pointing to the Sacred Scriptures that announce Christ´s mission as savior, which is the message that underlies this devout representation of the Virgin a
Michel Hochmann identified the painting in the Capodimonte as the ‘Quadretto corniciato di pero tinto con un ritratto di un giovane, in pietra di Genova, di mano del medesimo [Daniele]’ refered to in the 1600 inventory of the possessions of the antiquarian Fulvio Orsini (1529–1600). The artist referred to is Daniele Ricciarelli, known as Daniele da Volterra, and the attribution of the work seems s