Staring straight at us while nonchalantly holding a cigarette is the Hungarian-born art dealer Joseph Brummer (1883‒1947), who had opened his gallery in Paris that same year. Brummer dealt in African works of art and was one of Rousseau’s most devout patrons. Seated in a wicker chair covered in r...
Saint Bartholomew sits alone in the wilderness. Enveloped in the folds of his mantle, he turns towards us, unable to look at the knife clasped in his left hand. One of the twelve apostles, Bartholomew was said to have preached the gospel in India and Armenia. When he refused to make a sacrifice t...
Charlotte Cuhrt was 15 years old when Max Pechstein painted this striking full-length portrait. The daughter of Max Cuhrt, a successful solicitor and patron of the avant-garde, she sits confidently in an armchair, her big black eyes looking directly at the viewer. She’s dressed in red, with a lar...
For its lavish interiors, the objets d’art in the background, and the swaggering self-confidence of the sitter, this portrait has become an icon of the late 19th century’s Aesthetic movement. Painted by Jacques Joseph (James) Tissot, a French émigré who settled in London in 1871, it depicts the a...
A native of Berne, Switzerland, Ferdinand Hodler spent much of 1902 in the Oberland painting mountainous landscapes. This work shows the Kien Valley looking towards the Bluemlisalp, a massif at the far end of the valley. During his artistic retreats in the Alps – not so different, in spirit, from...
Dressed in a sumptuous black velvet doublet and satin robe trimmed with ermine, the man in this portrait looks out to his right with a steady, impassive gaze. Seated in front of an architectural column against a backdrop of shimmering green drapery, the full-length format of this portrait conveys...
Christ Carrying the Cross is a painting dating from the beginning of Lo Spagna’s professional maturity as an artist. Bent under the weight of the large wooden cross, Christ looks towards the viewer as he makes his way along the road to Calvary. Behind him, a raised area of ground falls away to r...
A young girl stands by a column and a balustrade, her hair tied back in a chignon, with tendrils hanging down on either side of her face. The girl’s dress dates the picture to the late 1640s. Isaack Luttichuys often painted his sitters against architectural backdrops and at first glance the paint...
This portrait of Charles William Lambton - aged six or seven - was commissioned by the boy’s father John George Lambton, 1st Earl of Durham, a Whig politician and MP for County Durham. Popularly known as The Red Boy, it remained in the Lambton family until it was acquired by the National Gallery...
Lovis Corinth (1858–1925), was a key figure of German modernist art. Active since 1892 in the Munich Secession, in 1899 Corinth participated in the first exhibition of the Berlin Secession. That same year he painted Dr Mainzer’s portrait, also in Berlin, and shortly afterwards he relocated perman...
In 1884 Pissarro settled with his family in the village of Eragny. He painted a number of views of this meadow which is planted with small trees still surrounded by their protective cages. It is late afternoon and the long shadows thrown by the trees radiate out in a fan shape towards the left co...
A mountain massif in central Switzerland, Mount Rigi rises above the waters of Lakes Lucerne, Zug and Lauerz, its main summit reaching some 1,800 metres above sea level. This view is from Mount Rigi itself, looking west over Lake Lucerne to Mount Pilatus. To the left stands the Bürgenstock, with...
In this vast canvas Orazio Gentileschi depicts the Old Testament story of the Finding of Moses (Exodus 2:2-10). When Pharaoh decreed that all newborn sons of Hebrews should be killed, the infant Moses was placed by his mother in a basket and hidden in bulrushes to ensure his safety.Here, nine ele...
This unfinished portrait of Thomas Gainsborough’s youngest daughter, Margaret (1751–1820), playing a theorbo (a kind of lute) unites two particularly personal aspects of the artist’s life and career: his deep affection for his family and friends, and their shared passion for music.The Gainsboroug...
This informal and striking portrait of the politician Peniston Lamb (1770–1805) shows off the precocious powers of Sir Thomas Lawrence at the start of his career.The 'gentle-hearted and engaging’ Peniston Lamb was the Member of Parliament for Newport from 1793 to 1796 and the Member for Hertfords...
Jan Toorop was a Dutch-Indonesian artist, born to a Dutch father and Chinese-Indonesian mother. After travelling to the Netherlands as a young boy, he enrolled at the École des Beaux-Arts in Brussels in 1883, where he met many influential artists such as James Ensor and Théo van Rysselberghe.Toor...
In the 1890s and early 1900s, Cezanne painted numerous views of the Bibémus Quarry. Situated not far from Aix-en-Provence, the site was renowned since Antiquity for its yellow-ochre limestone. But while the artist was mesmerised by the quarry’s chromatic qualities, he also had personal and intell...
This canvas is the sixth of a series of nine painted by Andrea Mantegna depicting The Triumphs of Caesar.The procession continues with men bearing the spoils of victory, some almost buckling under their heavy weight. A bare-footed bald man crouches down to rest his pole on the ground, his cheeks...
This canvas is the third of a series of nine painted by Andrea Mantegna depicting The Triumphs of Caesar.A young man in colourful attire and carrying a halberd walks before a cart heavily laden with booty – composed of a towering assembly of captured weapons and armour. His gaze looks out toward...
This canvas is the first of a series of nine painted by Andrea Mantegna depicting The Triumphs of Caesar.Trumpeters herald the arrival of the triumphal procession celebrating the victories of Julius Caesar during the Gallic Wars (55–50 BC). They are followed by men bearing flags and streamers. Ot...
This painting belongs to a series depicting the Seven Works of Mercy that Sweerts painted during his stay in Rome. The central figure is a bald pilgrim poised to drink from a bowl. Sweerts shows the fundamental Christian charitable act of quenching the thirst of others, set amidst the vibrant bac...
At the steps of a church, hungry people are being fed. At the centre stands a beggar making direct eye contact with the viewer. Painted in Rome, the work belongs to a series depicting the Seven Works of Mercy, the guiding principle for compassionate deeds inspired by the teachings of Christ, as o...
Van Gogh painted this view from his window at the asylum in Saint-Rémy, following a severe epileptic attack which had prevented him from painting. Typical of his work at this date, the scene is based on direct observation but is laden with personal meaning. The hardworking ploughman, tilling the...
The sunny, windswept beaches of Valencia became one of Sorolla’s best-loved and most popular subjects in the years around 1900, when he achieved international acclaim in Paris. This work, one of his earliest beach scenes, was painted several years before he began to take up the motif with regular...
This canvas is the second of a series of nine painted by Andrea Mantegna depicting The Triumphs of Caesar.In this scene, colossal full-length statues of Roman gods are transported on a richly ornamented cart, while a smaller one is lifted by a member of the entourage. An inscribed tablet praising...
This canvas is the fifth of a series of nine painted by Andrea Mantegna depicting The Triumphs of Caesar.In this part of the procession, Mantegna depicted four magnificent African elephants and their riders, skilfully using linear perspective to create a convincing impression of receding space. T...
This canvas is the fourth of a series of nine painted by Andrea Mantegna depicting The Triumphs of Caesar.This is the best-preserved of Mantegna’s Triumphs of Caesar. The scene continues the forward thrust established in the first three canvases (The Trumpeters, The Triumphal Carts and The Trophy...
During the summer of 1876 Manet and fellow artist Carolus-Duran stayed at the Paris retail magnate, Impressionist art collector and patron Ernest Hoschedé’s country house in Montgeron, south of Paris. They each started to work on a portrait of the other but both paintings were left unfinished. He...