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This attractive group portrait, one of the most interesting of the 17th-century Dutch school on account of its bourgeois spirit with aristocratic leanings, is an extraordinary skilful depiction of the artist´s close family. Jordaens portrays himself with his wife Catharina van Noort and their first child Elizabeth, born on 26 June 1617, whose age allows us to date the work approximately. Cat
In the past various authors have expressed their scepticism about the attribution of the painting to Rembrandt. However, the Rembrandt Research Project includes it in the Corpus of 1986 as an original work, and this is supported by the technical study conducted at the Museo del Prado that year. As for the signature, the unsteadiness of the stroke and, above all, the yellow colour make it dubious.
Genaro Pérez Villaamil (El Ferrol, 1807-Madrid, 1854) can be considered the most significant and influential Spanish Romantic landscape painter and an artist who had an intense interest, characteristic of that period, in depictions of cities and their monuments.The small size of the tin plates on which theses scenes are painted allowed Villaamil to work from the motif, as he generally did w
The encounter between Hercules and the Amazons, the ninth of his Labors, arose from his assignment to seize the girdle of Queen Hippolyte of the Amazons. Admete, the daughter of Eurystheus, had expressed a desire to possess it, and Hercules therefore set off on a mission to satisfy her desire. The girdle was the ensign of the Queen´s power and she had received it as a present from Ares. The Amazon
The vessel, similar to O44, is formed by three fragments of agate and five enamelled gold mounts. The body is an ancient piece of stone with a broad gold mount on the edge decorated with an enamelled pattern of white and black foliage linked by festoons of blue ribbons. Resting on this is an eagle’s head in black and white enamel, with a gold beak and two rubies for eyes. A thick knop supports the
An ovate vessel in the form of an urn. It has a smooth pyriform body with a double moulding on the shoulder, a neck with a concave profile, and a round mouth. The moulded cover has the form of a cupola, while the short bell-shaped stem ends in a round foot with the same diameter as the mouth. The stone, cracked since ancient times, is held by a mount of pierced and chased gold forming a net, with
Vessel similar to O38, except that the cover is missing. The precious stones on the jasper ring are complete, and the remaining cameos consist of a Roman-style bust of a crowned man and a woman’s head by the same maker, both of cornelian; another head, perhaps Hercules, in chalcedony; and a male bust crowned with laurel, with another female bust in the background, of agate, similar to a cameo pres
Vessel made up of three pieces of agate and six enamelled gold mounts. The boat-shaped bowl is decorated externally with a carved band of interlaced ovals separated by five-pointed fleurons. Running around the lip is a smooth gold mount, enamelled on the interior, with overlaid adornments of green leaves and white berries with incrustations of rubies and emeralds. At the stern is a Cupid enamelled
Oval platter made up of eighteen pieces of heliotrope joined by a gilt bronze frame and a recessed central body with cruciform motif around a central oval. Attached to the structure of the mounting are several overlays of enamelled gold, some now lost, adorned with thirty-seven pearls, of which twenty-five remain today. There is a similar platter at the Musée du Louvre, which suggests that
Vessel made up of two pieces of chalcedony and an enamelled gold mount. The body is formed by a deep hemispherical base and a smaller lid of the same shape surmounted by a delicate pyramidal openwork structure of pointed leaves, pavilions, fruits and rows of beads. Inserted in this are three cameos and numerous children’s heads with enamel wings. The stem, also openwork, displays three large cameo
This vessel had a pair, now lost (I1416), which must have been very similar and by the same hand as O37, the work of the silversmith Pierre Ladoyreau or Ladoireau, who made part of the silver furnishings at Versailles. It comprises two pieces of red jasper and two large mounts with twenty cameos. The body is in the form of a bowl with a diminished arch profile, a round mouth, and a lobulated ring
The pair of a vessel stolen in 1918, this is one of the few pieces which still preserve work by Pierre Ladoyreau or Ladoireau, one of the great master craftsmen of the 17th century in France, who designed furnishing and bronzes for the palace and gardens of Versailles. It is made up of two pieces of stone, sixteen cameos and three large enamelled gold mounts. The decoration of the mounts, similar
Described in the 1689 inventory of the Dauphin’s Cabinet as a vase “in the antique style”, this is an example of the prevailing fashion in the 1680s. The decoration of enamelled leaves in the adornments combines floral motifs covered in enamelling of the same metallic colour with a variety of stones, an aesthetic solution deriving from collections of engravings. The use of cameos serves to lend th
A tall cup made up of four pieces of rock crystal and four silver gilt and enamelled gold mounts. The bowl, carved in six facets decorated with sprays framed within bands, rests upon a base with concave gadroons. The knop has six facets with engraved ovals, as does the stem, with rings whose size decreases towards the hexagonal gadrooned foot. Three ring mounts hold the bowl, knop and stem to the
A vessel composed of three pieces of rock crystal and two partially enamelled silver gilt mounts, practically the same as O75, though lacking its handle. The globular body is made up of two pieces assembled with a moulding. The upper one is undecorated while the lower one has a bas-relief ornamentation of helicoidal gadroons and darts. A short collar joins it to the round foot. The piece is comple
A vessel with a diminished arch profile, somewhat everted, and a round mouth, standing on a ring support. It is coated on the inside with a fine sheet of gold, and on the outside with a mosaic formed by 791 fragments of turquoise. The pattern consists of a band with a salient moulding running around the lip, and a latticed field of stalks, leaves and flowers, similar to that on vessel O-70 of the
Vessel made up of four pieces of jasper and four silver gilt mounts. The body is formed by a piece of jasper with an oval section and semicircular profile, joined to its cover by a silver gilt strip. It has sixteen overlaid cameos, between which the same number of emeralds were originally intercalated. Three of these remain today. The rest of the mounts have a similar structure. The presence of Co
Goblet comprising four pieces of heliotrope, three adornments and two handles of gilded silver with appliqués of enamelled gold and turquoises. Its body, featuring an oval mouth and cruciform cross-section, is arranged in four large flutes. The goblet is finely carved, to the extent of endowing the stone with translucent qualities. The crown of the lid, the shape of which is evident from th
