Portrait Of A Lady, By ~ Etienne Adolphe Piot ~ 1850 - 1910.

Etienne Adolphe Piot was a painter of portraits and genre subjects.

A pupil of Leon Cogniet, Piot made his Paris Salon debut in 1850 and became a member of the Society of French artists in 1883. In 1890 he obtained an honourable mention.

As a commercial artist, Piot was highly successful. He was able to capitalize on the growing demand for portraits from the upper echelons of Parisian society. Every Debutante in Europe would sit for artists like Piot, nowhere more so than in the French capital during the belle epoch. The captivating mystery he was able to give his patrons through portraiture ensured the artist was always in demand and although we do not know the identity of the sitter in this example, Reflective Mood is typical of Piot’s work at this time.

Portrait Of A Lady ~ By ~ Jens Juel ~ 1745 - 1802.

Jens Juel was an 18th century Danish painter, primarily known for his many portraits, of which the largest collection is on display at Frederiksborg Castle.
Juel was born in the house of his mother's brother Johan Jørgensen; showing an interest in painting from an early age, his parents sent him to be an apprentice of painter Johann Michael Gehrman in Hamburg, Here Jens improved so much that by his twenties he had acquired a reputation as a painter of portraits, landscapes, etc. In 1765 he moved to Copenhagen to attend the Royal Danish Academy of Art, in 1767 being awarded its small, then in 1771 large, gold medals. 1772 saw him move to Rome, where he stayed for four years together with other Danish artists, including Nicolai Abildgaard. From Rome, he moved to Paris, at the time a centre of portrait painting. In 1777 he moved on to Geneva, where he stayed for two years in the company of other Danish artists, including etcher Johann Friderich Clemens; here Juel soon established himself as an excellent artist, particularly with regards to portaiture.

"La baronne de Crussol" By ~ Elisabeth Vigee Le Brun ~ 1755 - 1842.

Marie Louise Elisabeth Vigee, better known under her married name of Le Brun, and generally spoken of as Madame Elisabeth Vigee Le Brun, was born in Paris on April 16, 1755. Her father, Louis Vigee, was a pastel painter of moderate talent, devoted to his art and always ready to commend and encourage his daughter's talent. In those 'Souvenirs' in which Madame Vigee Le Brun has recorded the incidents of her life, she tells us that her love for painting bad already declared itself when, as a child of six, she was sent to a convent school, where she was in constant disgrace with her teachers because she decorated her copy books and those of her schoolmates, and even the walls of the dormitory, with faces and landscapes in colored chalks. On one occasion, when at home on a holiday, she drew by lamplight a vigorous little sketch of the bead of a man, which so delighted her father that he exclaimed, "You will be a painter, my child, if ever there was one" These words Elisabeth Vigee never forgot, and that childish drawing, made when she was but seven or eight years old, was cherished by her as long' as she lived.

"Young Woman With Lace Shawl" By ~ Adelaide salles-Wagner ~ 1825 - 1890.

Adelaide Salles-Wagner (1825-1890)
[Adelheid Salles-Wagner]

Mme. Adelheid Salles-Wagner, born in 1825 in Dresden, is the elder of two sisters, both of whom are well-known painters. Her family name is Wagner. Her sister Elise, who became Madame Puyroche, devoted herself to flower painting. Adelheid studied the figure, first at the Dresden Academy and later under Jacquand and Cogniet in Paris. There she met and married the well-known artist Jules Salles [Jules Salles-Warner (1814-1898)], a native of Nimes and pupil of Paul Delaroche. Mme. Salles-Wagner made her first successes with portraits, in oil and in pastel, and then produced a series of mythological and religious pictures of rare merit. In her present picture, the chaste Arethusa, persecuted by the persistent attentions of the love smitten Arcadian river-god Alpheius, prays to Diana for protection against his unwelcome importunities, and is being changed by her into the magic fountain of Artygia.

"On The Terrace", By ~ Sir Edward John Poynter ~ 1836 - 1919.

Sir Edward John Poynter, 1st Baronet, was an English painter, designer, draughtsman and art administrator, most active during the second half of the 19th century.
The son of Ambrose Poynter, an architect, he was born in Paris. He was educated at Ipswich School and Brighton College before studying first in London, later in Rome (where he became a great admirer of Michelangelo) and lastly, with Charles Gleyre in Paris (where he met James McNeill Whistler). Poynter held a number of official posts: he was the first Slade Professor from 1871 to 1875, was Principal of the National Art Training School from 1875 to 1881, was Director of the National Gallery from 1894 to 1904

"The Maid Of Honer" By ~ Jean-Francois Raffaelli ~ 1867 - 1924.

Jean-François Raffaëlli was a French realist painter, sculptor, and printmaker who exhibited with the Impressionists. He was also active as an actor and writer, mostly during the first half of the 20th century.

Raffaëlli was born in Paris. He showed an interest in music and theatre before becoming a painter in 1870. One of his landscape paintings was accepted for exhibition at the Salon in that same year. In October 1871 he began three months of study under Jean-Léon Gérôme at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris - he received no other formal training. Raffaëlli produced primarily costume pictures until 1876, when he began to depict the people of his time—particularly peasants, workers, and rag-pickers seen in the suburbs of Paris—in a realistic style. The rag-picker became for Raffaëlli a symbol of the alienation of the individual in modern society.

"The White Rose" By ~ Fernand Toussaint ~ 1873 - 1955.

Toussaint was primarily known as a painter and watercolourist of female portraits, which he presented in a rich and elegant manner. His works were usually commissioned by the upper-middle class and noble families. His models were always dressed in the latest fashion, often accompanied by an umbrella or a hat, and seated on a bench in a house interior. The gazes of the women are honest, barely provocative and dreamy. Avant-garde art magazines in Paris took notice of him when he was awarded the gold medal for a portrait of an elegant lady at the renowned “Salon des Artistes Français” in Paris in 1929.

Sophia, By ~ Sir Samuel Luke Fildes ~ 1844 - 1927.

Samuel Luke Fildes was born in Liverpool in 1843. When he was a child he was adopted by his grandmother, Mary Fildes, a political activist who was one of the speakers at the Manchester meeting that ended in the Peterloo Massacre. In the 1840s Mary Fildes ran the Shrewsbury Arms in Chester and was a leading figure in the Female Chartist movement.

Pleasure By ~ Anton Raphael Mengs ~ 1728 - 1779.

Anton Raphael Mengs, born in Bohemia (in what is now the Czech Republic), spent his childhood in Dresden, where his father, Ismael Mengs (1688–1764), was court painter to Friedrich August II (1696–1763) of Saxony, king of Poland. The aptly named youth was schooled principally in Rome, where he spent the greater part of his life from 1740 onward. Mengs was well known to his contemporaries as a practitioner and theorist of Neoclassicism; he has been less admired since, and it could perhaps even be argued that he was too much influenced by Raphael (1483–1520). Among Mengs' most famous works are the ballroom ceiling depicting Parnassus in Cardinal Albani's villa in Rome, completed in 1761, and the fresco decorations undertaken immediately thereafter in the royal palace in Madrid.

The Admirer, By ~ Cleto Lozzi ~ 1884 - 1952.

Cleto Luzzi

Cleto Luzzi came from a wealthy Roman aristocratic family. His relatives included lawyers, cardinals and politicans which enabled Luzzi to pursue his talent securely. Flourishing around the turn of the century, he often painted genre scenes depicting lavish aristocratic gatherings in the style of fellow Italian Vittorio Reggianini. His artistic pursuits took him to Thailand for a period of his life. In 1949, late in his painting career, Luzzi was comissioned to paint the interior scenes within the newly rebuilt 'Parrocchia Santa Maria del Porto'. Located in the Marina de San Vito, Abruzzi on the east coast of Italy, the parish was destroyed during World War II, and Luzzi's major painting work became one of the primary attractions of the new parish. .

Contessa Nerina Pisani, By ~ Vittorio Matteo Corcos ~ 1859 - 1933.

Vittorio Matteo Corcos

(Leghorn 1859 - Florence 1933)

Born in Leghorn on 4 October 1859, in the 1870's Corcos studied at the "Accademia delle Belle Arti di Firenze" under Enrico Pollastrini. Between 1878 and 1879 he was in Naples at Domenico Morelli's studio whose work, rich in literary associations and formal ideas made a great impression on him. A work that illustrates Morelli's influence, "Arabo in preghiera" (The Praying Arab), dates from this period.

In 1880 Corcos moved to Paris where he signed a two-week contract with the Goupil Art Gallery. From time to time he went to the studio of Léon Bonnat, portrait painter to the Parisian upper middle class and he successfully became part of elite art circles. For his own paintings he chose fashionable themes: female portraits, scenes of modern life, sophisticated interiors painted in vibrant colours and fluid brushstrokes, works in the style of Boldini and De Nittis. Between 1881 and 1886, the year when he returned to Italy, he frequently exhibited at the Salon.

"Fireworks" By ~ Konstantin Andreevic Somov ~ 1869 - 1939.

Constantin Andreevich Somov was born in St. Petersburg on November 30, 1869 into the family of the senior curator at the Hermitage, artist and art historian, Andrei Ivanovich Somov and his wife, Nadezhda Constantinovna, an excellent musician. The family had a big collection of paintings, etchings, watercolors, big library; the artists were frequent guests in the house. Constantin started to learn to play piano, singing, and painting early.
From 1888 till 1897, he studied at the Academy of Arts, where from 1894 he took a course at Ilya Repin’s studio. Later he wrote that the first five years in the Academy were a lost and fruitless time. Nevertheless he took the studies very seriously and got a number of awards in the academy. The work with Repin can be felt in some of his paintings of those years, e.g. portraits of N. Ober, wife of the sculptor Ober (1896), Portrait of Father (1897), Self-Portrait (1898).

Since his childhood Somov was a friend of Alexander Benois; during their students’ years they often gathered together in the house of Benois, there Somov got acquainted with Sergei Dyagilev, future theatre interprener, and Lev Bakst.

Mademoiselle de Lancey ~ By Carolus Duran ~ 1838 - 1913.

Mademoiselle de Lancey, Alice Tahl dite de Lancey (1851-1913)

Auteur :

Carolus-Duran (1838-1917)

Crédit photographique :

(C) RMN-Grand Palais / Agence Bulloz

Période :

19e siècle, période contemporaine de 1789 à 1914

Date :

1876

Technique/Matière :

huile sur toile

Vintage Ladies dressed in the Colour of Summer rain.

"The New Bracelet" By ~ Frans Verhas ~ 1827 - 1897.

The New Bracelet.

Jeune Fille.

Having trained with his father, he studied in Brussels before settling permanently at Schaerbeek in 1867. In Brussels he specialized almost exclusively in producing genre paintings of bourgeois subjects. His compositions were skilfully executed and he showed a keen eye for detail, portraying sumptuous interiors decorated with tapestries, satins, animal pelts and marble as a backdrop to playing children and elegant women dressed in crinolines, or striking aristocratic poses: for example The Lion (1874; Ghent, Mus. S. Kst.) and the Inconsolable Woman (1878; Antwerp, Kon. Mus. S. Kst.). He also painted historical subjects, which he treated with a powerful sense of realism (e.g. Louis XIV before Dendermonde in 1667 , 1881; and the League of Noblemen ; both Dendermonde, Stadhuis), and executed portraits (e.g. Mariam Van Duyse , 1852; Dendermonde, Vrouwekerk).

Elisabeth Alexeievna By ~ Jean Laurent Mosnier ~ 1743 - 1808.

Mosnier was a student at the Académie de St Luc, Paris, where he trained as a miniature painter. In 1776 he was appointed Peintre de la Reine to Marie-Antoinette. He was approved by the Académie Royale in 1786 and received as a full member in 1788, presenting two portraits of Academicians, the sculptor Charles-Antoine Bridan and the painter Louis Lagrenée I. He exhibited a Self-portrait (St. Petersburg, Hermitage) at the Salon of 1786, showing himself relaxed and confident at the centre of his studio.

After the outbreak of the French Revolution, Mosnier fled to London in 1790 and exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1791 to 1796. His English portraits make some concession to current English taste. From London Mosnier went to Hamburg, where he stayed four years, and then, in 1801, to St Petersburg, a favorite destination for French émigré artists. A potential rival, Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, left the city later that year, and Mosnier assumed an influential position. In 1802 he was accepted into the St Petersburg Academy, and he was made a professor there in 1806. His portrait sitters included the imperial family. Mosnier was a versatile and prolific portrait painter, capable of modifying his style in accordance with changed geographical circumstances, and using his skill as a trained miniaturist to good effect in his highly polished and detailed full-size portraits.

Portrait Of A Lady, By ~ Albert Edelfelt ~ 1854 - 1905.

From promising young Finnish painter to European celebrity, Albert Edelfelt was Finland’s first cosmopolitan art icon. His work was admired by, among many others, Vincent van Gogh. Declining a professorship at the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg, Edelfelt’s greatest passions were the Parisian lifestyle and summers spent in his native country.

The Last Roses Of Summer

    

The Last Roses Of Summer.

    

Marquise de Caumont By Francois Hubert Drouais ~ 1727 - 1775.

Drouais was the successor to Nattier as the chief portrait painter at the court of Louis XV. He portrayed most of the leading figures of his age, including the king and his two most famous mistresses, Madame de Pompadour and Madame du Barry, as well as artists and leading members of the professional classes.

Drouais was born in Paris, the son of the painter Hubert Drouais (1699 - 1767), who was famous for his miniature portraits. Drouais was trained by his father and by other well-known painters, including Carle van Loo, Natoire and Boucher. He became a member of the Academy in 1758, and exhibited regularly at the Salon from 1755 to the year of his death.

Drouais was celebrated for his likenesses of aristocrats dressed in rustic costume, a current fashion, and for his representations of children, often in landscape settings.

Empress Marie Feodorovna.

Marie Dagmar was a Danish princess who married the future Alexander III. This was a case of opposites attracting. Two such different personalities came together in harmony to produce a happy family. Marie loved parties, people, dressing up, and all the gaiety that court could provide. She was immensely popular with the Russians. As Dowager Empress (widow) she had great influence over her son, Nicholas II. During the 1917 revolution she fled the country, living out her days in England.

Harriet Hoctor ~ Ballet.

At the age of 15, Harriet Hoctor made her Broadway debut in 1920 as a chorus dancer in Jerome Kern's musical Sally, produced by Florenz Ziegfeld. In 1923 she starred in Vivian and Rosetta Duncan's Topsy and Eva and toured with the show until 1926. Subsequent Broadway productions included A La Carte (1927), Earl Carrol's Vanities (1932), Hold Your Horses (1933), as well as several Billy Rose musical revues. Having caught the eye of producer Ziegfeld in Sally, Hoctor was to star in four subsequent Ziegfeld-produced musicals: The Three Musketeers (1928), Show Girl (1929), Simple Simon (1930), and The Ziegfeld Follies of 1936. Films include The Great Ziegfeld (MGM, 1936) and Shall We Dance (RKO 1937). Hoctor was also a popular feature as a ballet dancer on the vaudeville Keith/Orpheum Circuit. In 1945 she retired from performing to open a ballet school in Boston. She died in 1977.

Marguerite Bellanger Bust, By ~ Albert Ernest Carrier-Belleuse ~ 1824 - 1887.

 

Carrier-Belleuse is the name used by this sculptor--born Carrier de Belleuse--on his mature pieces, after initially signing works "A. Carrier." His career began firmly in the applied arts, with his apprenticeship at thirteen to a Parisian ciseleur today known as Bauchery (or Beauchery), and he did subsequent work for Jacques-Henri Fauconnier and Fannière Frères. His formal education took place at the Petite Ecole--chosen after an unhappy stint at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1840 under the direction of David d'Angers, his official master. While at the Petite Ecole in the 1840s, Carrier-Belleuse began his lifelong practice of providing commercial houses with models for edition, as statuettes or as ornament for functional pieces. Around 1850, the sculptor moved to England as a designer for Minton China Works, at Stoke-upon-Trent, as well as for Wedgewood, Coalbrookdale Ironworks, and Graham & Jackson furniture makers. Even after returning to Paris in 1855, he continued to send models to British firms throughout his life.

Joseph Karl Stieler Portrait of Mathilde von Bayern.

Mathilde wears an evening dress with huge outer sleeves in her 1830 Stieler portrait. Her only visible jewel is her belt buckle.

The Interrupted Sleep, By ~ Francois Boucher ~ 1703 - 1770.

Boucher was an artist of incomparable virtuosity and industry with a preference for mythological and pastoral subjects. Here he shows a beautifully dressed shepherd and shepherdess. The latter sleeps, while the former tickles her pink lips with a bit of straw. The simplicity of the subject belies the complexity of the composition, which is organized around a series of intersecting diagonals. This canvas, much admired when it was exhibited at the Salon of 1753, was described as one of a pair of overdoors from Bellevue. The château belonged to Madame de Pompadour, mistress of Louis XV.

I Wish I could........

I wish I could press snowflakes in a book like flowers.

Ball Gown ~ 1858 ~ Boston.

"Angel Of The Annunciation" By ~ French School ~ 19th Century.

French School (19th Century)

Angel of the Annunciation

Laura, By Ken Hamilton.

Laura, can describe the work of Ken Hamilton. A sense of wonder and questioning radiates from his work, as if his figures are lost in a maze of inward contemplation or thought. This same stillness appears to be drawn from the work of Dutch master, Johannes Vermeer. Hamilton himself describes his vision as “contemporary and also timeless; realistic yet representing an unreal world; almost touchable but totally beyond our reach; as plain as day but still mysterious.”

Ken Hamilton’s style can be described as a contemporary Renaissance; a modern “rebirth” of the ideals enlisted by the    artists of the 15th and 16th centuries, going against the popular use of abstraction and distortion seen so frequently in modern and contemporary art.

Ken Hamilton was born in Nigeria, West Africa, where he lived until age 11, at which time he moved to Ireland and has remained ever since.

"Violet" By ~ Sir James Jebusa Shannon ~ 1862 - 1923.

James Jebusa Shannon  American artist (1862-1923) 

SHANNON, JAMES JEBUSA (1862- ), Anglo-American artist, was born at Auburn, New York, in 1862', and at the age of eight was taken by his parents to Canada. When he was sixteen, he went to England, where he studied at South Kensington, and after three years won the gold medal for figure painting. His portrait of the Hon. Horatia Stopford, one of the queen's maids of honor, attracted attention at the Royal Academy in 1881, and in 1887 his portrait of Henry Vigne in hunting costume was one of the successes of the exhibition, subsequently securing medals for the artist at Paris, Berlin and Vienna. He soon became one of the leading portrait painters in London. He was one of the first members of the New English Art Club, and in 1897 was elected an associate of the Royal Academy, and R.A. in 1909. His picture, " The Flower Girl," was bought in 1901 for the National Gallery of British Art.

Arlene Dahl ~ 1928 - 1950's.

Elegance and femininity are fitting descriptions for Arlene Dahl. She is considered to be one of the most beautiful actresses to have graced the screen during the postwar period. Audiences were captivated by her breathtaking beauty and the way she used to it to her advantage, progressing from claimer to character roles.

Of Norwegian extraction, Miss Dahl was born in Minneapolis. Following high school she joined a local drama group, supporting herself with a variety of jobs, including modeling for a number of department stores. Arriving in Hollywood in 1946, she signed a brief contract with Warner Brothers, but she is best remembered for her work at MGM. The Bride Goes Wild (1948) was her first work at Metro. It was an odd but rather humorous love story, which starred Van Johnson and June Allyson.

"Elegant Lady" By Charles Amable Lenoir ~ 1860 - 1926.

Charles-Amable Lenoir (22 October 1860–1926) was a French painter. Like his mentor, William-Adolphe Bouguereau, he was an academic painter and painted realistic portraits as well as mythological and religious scenes. His artistic career was so prestigious that he won the Prix de Rome twice and was awarded the Légion d'honneur.

Lenoir was born in Châtellaillon, a small town just outside of La Rochelle. His mother was a seamstress and his father was a customs officer. When he was young, his father was reassigned and the family moved to Fouras. He did not start out in life as an artist, but instead began his education at a teachers' college in La Rochelle. Upon graduation, he worked as a teacher and supervisor at the lycée in Rochefort.

Portrait By ~ Carlo Dolci ~ 1616 - 1686.

Carlo Dolci, byname Carlino    (born May 25, 1616, Florence [Italy]—died Jan. 17, 1687, Florence), Italian painter, one of the last representatives of the Florentine school of Baroque painting, whose mainly devotional works are characterized by their oversweet and languid piety.
Dolci studied with a minor local painter and at an extremely early age showed a talent for portrait painting. Failing to develop significantly in this direction, however, he vowed, inspired by Counter-Reformation teachings, to devote his career to painting religious subjects. At a time when other Florentine artists migrated to Rome, the centre of monumental Baroque painting, Dolci remained in Tuscany and developed his manner out of the more sober, static native traditions of Florence.

Dolci painted pictures that were highly popular in his day. The figures in his dramatically concentrated compositions are typically half-length and treated with refinement of detail, soft colour, and strong contrasts of light and dark.

Thumbelina and the Butterfly.

 

Lotte Reiniger has the distinction of creating the very first feature animation, her enthralling The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926), an epic silhouette film featuring highly ornate shapes of exotic lands, gallant heroes, nefarious magic, and a rousing climax with a multi-headed beast. A German leftist in the age of fascism, after the war she moved to England, where she continued to build a visionary oeuvre totalling over fifty films, mostly shorts, many of them for BBC Children’s TV. She made her last film, The Rose and the Ring (1979), at the age of 80. In addition to their craft and charm, her films have two outstanding features: they are highly intricate, yet also opaque, inviting viewers to fill in details with their own imagination, thus creating a captivating aesthetic as commanding today as ever.

Portrait By Philip Wilson Steer,1860 - 1942.

Philip Wilson Steer 
English Artist (1860-1942) 
  Steer was among the leaders of British artists in his generation who looked to France for inspiration. One of the only few truly English Impressionist. He trained in Paris 1882-4 (around the time Sargent was reaching his height there) and revisiting France four times between 1887 and 1891.

Castro Alves Poem.

Ask for a mirror from Venice…
Gaze at your face…and you will see
One of the most beautiful paintings
Which — men would not know how to make,
Which — two alike God did not do.

In your beautiful mouth
You will see a pretty rose
Almost closed while smiling
And, like shining drops,
The pearls of your teeth
In the breast of the sparkling flower.
The Oriental perfume
— When you pray innocently —
One cradles in your lips.
And in your breast, one trembles,
You have the Poetry, one moans,
You have the harmony of the Heavens.
Do you want to see Paradise?
Reveal your lips…A laugh
Come show us Eden…
Sing!… And the sacred hymns
You will see in Heaven
Falling stars listen to you.
You have the night by the strings
Where the breeze in arguing themes
Howls… dies of slowness.
They are more than stars — shining
Your fascinating eyes,

"Where There's A Will" By ~ Edmund Blair Leighton ~ 1853 - 1922.

Edmund Blair Leighton, ROI (British, 1853-1922)

Where there's a will
signed and dated 'E.BLAIR LEIGHTON.1892

"The Sea Hath It's Pearls" By ~ William Henry Margetson ~ 1861 - 1940.

The cool monochrome of the location suggests an English coastal resort, though clearly Margetson had the Mediterranean in mind. His lovely fossicker is dressed to evoke the ancient classical past more than late Victorian England. Indeed, Margetson's rather dry application of pale pigment echoes Roman fresco technique. Like most of the lesser genre painters and portraitists of his day, he succumbed to the ever-virulent strain of Victorian classicism, being influenced by better-known contemporaries such as Leighton and Poynter. It goes without saying that the pearl of the title is a punning allusion to the maiden herself.

The Green Calash, By ~ Ellen Day Hale ~ 1855 - 1940.

Painter, etcher, and writer Ellen Day Hale, was one of the few women professional artists of her era, late 19th and early 20th centuries, to 'rise to the top' at a time when men ruled the domain of fine art.  Heavily credentialed in painting and printmaking by study at respected institutions, "she also played a major role as a mentor for a younger generation of aspiring women artists,

Young lady in a garden by Betty Maude Christian Fagan

"A Thorn Admidst Roses" By ~ James Sant ~ 1820 - 1916.

Portrait painter in oil. Born in Croydon. Studied art under John Varley and Sir Augustus Callcott, also at the R.A. Schools. Exhibited many works at the Royal Academy from 1840. Elected A.R.A. in 1861, R.A. in 1869, and retired from the R.A. in 1914. Appointed Principal Painter in Ordinary to Queen Victoria. He received many important portrait commissions, but also painted landscapes and genre. Lived in London and died on 12th July 1916.