"Girl With Straw Hat" By ~ Friedrich von Amerling ~ 1803 - 1887.

Friedrich von Amerling was a painter of exceptional forte, widely spatted for his sentimental, simple and pious view of the world in a realistic way in his portrait paintings. One of the biggest exponents of Biedermeier Painting Movement, this 19th century painter contributed humongously to the development of this influential painting style. Born into nobility, this blue-blooded artist exhibited outstanding skills so far his clarity of contour and rich coloration was concerned. In that way, his painting style, to a certain extent, was inspired by that of Ingres. In other words, he was the most outstanding Austrian portrait painters of the 19th century. Apart from being a portrait painter, he also showed great skill in painting historic, genre, and landscape paintings. Amerling, besides being a painter, was also a teacher who taught Hungarian painter József Borsos. He mainly worked for aristocracy. He is still remembered as a legendary painter of the 19th century.

Bonnet and Pearls, Marta Berzkalna ~ Vogue Russia ~ By Mariano Vivanco,

Marta Berzkalna in Vogue Russia April 2011 by Mariano Vivanco

Springtime, By ~ Marty Bell ~ 1931 - 2003.

Internationally collected oil painting artist Marty Bell, born in 1931,emerged with new developments in her style and direction. Propelled by her creative drive, vision and passion for unique beauty, her brushes produced even greater artistic expressions, appealing to a wide variety of contemporary and traditional tastes. Marty painted professionally since 1968. Although largely self-taught, early in her career she shared her talents for eleven years by teaching up to 40 students weekly. High popularity of her original paintings prompted the closing of  her art school to concentrate on her own work. With increasing market demand, she began producing limited edition reproductions and later formed Marty Bell Fine Art, Inc. in 1987 as her publishing company.  Marty has been honored by over 200 successful single or featured artist shows, has sold out more than 100 limited edition reproductions and sold over 2400 original paintings.  Marty Bell passed away October 15th, 2003, after a year and a half struggle with cancer.  She will be missed.

"Conversation In The Garden Of Luxembourg" By ~ Vittorio Matteo Corcos ~ 1859 - 1933.

Vittorio Matteo Corcos - Conversations in the Garden of Luxembourg

Vittorio Matteo Corcos (Leghorn, October 4, 1859 - Florence, 1933) was an Italian painter. In 1880 he 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.

"ON The Seashore" By ~ George Elgar Hicks ~ 1824 - 1914.

George Elgar Hicks

Born on March 13, 1824 in Lymington, Hampshire, England, George Elgar Hicks was the second son of a wealthy magistrate, who along with fellow painter William Powell Frith, became amongst the most admired and popular painters of the Victorian era. Hicks parents encouraged him to become a doctor, leading him to study medicine at University College, London from 1840-1842. However after three years of "arduous and disagreeable study", Hicks began training as an artist. In 1843 Hick's attended Sass's Academy and by 1844 had entered the Royal Academy Schools. Hicks then married Maria Hariss in 1847 with whom he would eventually have eight children. In 1859, Hicks exhibited his first large genre painting at the Royal Academy, following Frith's recent commercial success in painting similar scenes. Hicks continued to paint genre scenes to much acclaim throughout the 1860's before shifting to historical scenes, literary scenes,and portraiture in the 1870's and 1880's. Hicks died a month before the declaration of World War I, in 1914. Paintings of his can be found in the Tate Museum in London.

Madame Misonne By ~ Leonard Misonne ~ 1910.

Belgian, b. 1870

Misonne was a master pictorialist photographer, whose atmospheric landscapes and street scenes are among the finest pictorial depictions of such subject matter. He employed many process and techniques throughout his career and championed a highly diffused printing system and light quality. His photographs are among many important collections and anthologies on the history of pictorialist photography.

Coco Rocha in Vogue US December 2008 by Annie Leibovitz

Coco Rocha in Vogue US December 2008 by Annie Leibovitz

Madonna, Rafael Sanzio.

Mario Scalini, state supervisor of fine arts for Modena and Reggio Emilia, was doing inventory of the tens of thousands of art pieces in storage in his area when he found a small portrait of a lady framed by a beautifully elaborate gilded 17th century frame in the vault of the ducal palace of the Este family in Sassuolo, outside of Modena.
He immediately noted the high quality of the painting. The piece was thought to be an 18th century copy of the head of the Madonna in Rafael’s famous Holy Family of the Pearl now in the Prado museum, so Scalini found its exceptional quality incongruous. Also, why would a mere 12 by 16-inch copy be put in such a large, sumptuous frame?
He followed up on his hunch that this might be an actual Raphael by digging through the ducal archives for any reference to the portrait. He found nothing about a copy, but he did find an inventory reference from 1663 to a “portrait of a woman” by Raphael. There is no record of the Raphael portrait currently in the collection, nor was there any trace of it having been ceded to the Elector of Saxony in 1746 when Francesco III d’Este had to sell many of the most valuable pictures after he was bankrupted by the Wars of the Spanish, Polish, and Austrian Successions. There was no record of it being loaned or dispersed at any other time either, so it seems the Rafael was squirreled away somewhere and forgotten, maybe to be mistaken for a copy decades later

"ELEGANT" By ~ Albert Lynch ~ 1851 - 1912.

Lynch specialised in painting female subjects to which he brought a charming elegance and sophistication typical of such belle epoque paintings. He worked most often in pastel or watercolour, although he occasionally used oils, and he provided illustrations for two books, 'La Dame aux Camelias' by Dumas fils and 'La Parisienne' by Henry Becque. He was made a Chevalier de la Legion d'honneur in 1901

Talbot, Photographie, 1911 - 1920.

Photographie du Studio Talbot, Paris, vers 1911-1920

Papier photographique ; épreuve noir et blanc sur papier argentique montée sur carton sous feuille plastique.

Queen Alexandrina Victoria By ~ Franz Xaver Winterhalter.

Creator: 

Franz Xaver Winterhalter (1805-73) (artist)

Creation Date: 

1847

Acquirer: 

Albert, Prince (1819-61)

Provenance: 

Commissioned by Queen Victoria and given to Prince Albert as a present on their wedding anniversary, 10 February 1847

Description: 

Winterhalter was born in the Black Forest where he was encouraged to draw at school. In 1818 he went to Freiburg to study under Karl Ludwig Schüler and then moved to Munich in 1823, where he attended the Academy and studied under Josef Stieler, a fashionable portrait painter.

Woman With Swans ~ By ~ T.C.Chiu.

T. C. Chiu

T. C. Chiu was born in China and developed an interest in art when he was a young child. He began his art studies in China and continued when he came to America in 1974. His delicate work is the combination of the essential qualities of traditional realism and contemporary painting techniques.

Accomplished in a wide range of media, he incessantly challenges his mastery of watercolor, oil and printmaking. Many subjects inspire the widely traveled artist. Pre-eminent among them is an abiding reverence for the peace and beauty of the world of nature that is reflected in his painting.

"The Boudoir Rose" By ~ Henry Thomas Schafer ~ 1873 - 1915.

The Boudoir Rose

Henry Thomas Schafer (1873-1915) The Boudoir Rose