Friday, November 24, 2017

10 Paintings, PORTRAIT OF A LADY FROM EGYPT, with Footnotes. #20

John Singer Sargent, 1856 - 1925
A Fellah Woman
Oil on canvas
 22 x 18 in
Private collection

Estimated for US$1,200,000 - US$1,800,000 in  October 2023

Fellah is a farmer or agricultural laborer in the Middle East and North Africa. The word derives from the Arabic word for "ploughman" or "tiller".

Due to a continuity in beliefs and lifestyle, the fellahin of Egypt have been described as the "true" Egyptians. More on Fallah

Sargent travelled to Egypt embarking on a research expedition lasting a full three months. 1891 saw him in Alexandria and Cairo, where he rented a studio. He travelled in Upper Egypt: Denderah, Luxor, Thebes, Aswan, Philae and El Faiyûm.

He was voracious and inclusive, copying illustrations in books and objects in museums to build up his portfolio of Eastern imagery.

During this visit, he was particularly interested in the human form, painting a full-length portrait Life Study (Study of an Egyptian Girl) (See below).

John Singer Sargent
Egyptian Woman, c. 1891
Oil on canvas
25 1/2 x 21 in. (64.8 x 53.3 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art

John Singer Sargent
Egyptian Woman with Earrings, c. 1890–91
Oil on canvas
28 x 24 1/2 in. (53.3 x 64.1 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art

He depicted the same woman four times, exploring the pictorial possibilities of her face. There are three oils (two are in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) and one pencil study (Yale University Art Gallery). This is the only profile study and it is more highly charged, almost as if Sargent is painting the woman in character. She wears a heavy necklace consisting of a single row of light-struck coins closely strung and hung from pod-like metallic lozenges, with a central, clustered drop of coins. It is a traditional Eastern necklace and may have been a studio prop.

John Singer Sargent (January 12, 1856 – April 14, 1925) was an American artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian era luxury. During his career, he created roughly 900 oil paintings and more than 2,000 watercolors, as well as countless sketches and charcoal drawings. His oeuvre documents worldwide travel, from Venice to the Tyrol, Corfu, the Middle East, Montana, Maine, and Florida.

His parents were American, but he was trained in Paris prior to moving to London. Sargent enjoyed international acclaim as a portrait painter, although not without controversy and some critical reservation; an early submission to the Paris Salon, his "Portrait of Madame X", was intended to consolidate his position as a society painter, but it resulted in scandal instead. From the beginning his work was characterized by remarkable technical facility, particularly in his ability to draw with a brush, which in later years inspired admiration as well as criticism for a supposed superficiality. His commissioned works were consistent with the grand manner of portraiture, while his informal studies and landscape paintings displayed a familiarity with Impressionism. In later life Sargent expressed ambivalence about the restrictions of formal portrait work, and devoted much of his energy to mural painting and working en plein air. He lived most of his life in Europe. More John Singer Sargent

John Singer Sargent
Life Study (Study of an Egyptian Girl), c. 1891
Oil on canvas
190.5 × 61 cm (75 × 24 in.)
Art Institute of Chicago

The identity of the woman who posed in Cairo for this full-length figure study is not known. She assumes a complicated posture, placing her weight on her right foot while twisting her upper body to the left. Instead of using the bravura painterly style of swift, visible brushstrokes that characterizes his society portraits, Sargent returned to his academic training, carefully modeling the human form and a range of flesh tones. Life Study was widely exhibited, including at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. More on this painting

Elizabeth Gardner Bouguereau, (American, 1837-1922)
La Confidence, ca. 1880
Oil on canvas
68 x 47-1/8 in.
Georgia Museum of Art, Athens

This painting depicts an intimate, whispered secret between two young peasant girls. The painting was given to the Lucy Cobb Institute, an all-girls school in Athens, Georgia. Hung in the drawing room parlor of the school, the work was beloved in the school’s collection and was viewed as having a “moralizing purpose” for the young girls enrolled in the finishing school. More on this painting

Elizabeth Jane Gardner (October 4, 1837 – January 28, 1922) was an American academic and salon painter, who was born in Exeter, New Hampshire. She was an American expatriate who died in Paris where she had lived most of her life. She studied in Paris under the figurative painter Hugues Merle (1823–1881), the well-known salon painter Jules Joseph Lefebvre (1836–1911), and finally under William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825–1905). After Bouguereau's wife died, Gardner became his paramour and after the death of his mother, who bitterly opposed the union, she married him in 1896. She adopted his subjects, compositions, and even his smooth facture, channeling his style so successfully that some of her work might be mistaken for his.  More on Elizabeth Jane Gardner

 Head of the ptolemaic queen Berenice II (reign between 246–221 BC).
Glyptothek, Munich

Berenice II (267 or 266 BC – 221 BC) was a ruling queen of Cyrene by birth, and a queen and co-regent of Egypt by marriage to her cousin Ptolemy III Euergetes, the third ruler of the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt.

In approximately 249 BC, her father died, making Berenice ruling queen of Cyrene. Soon after Berenice was married to Demetrius the Fair, a Macedonian prince.

After Demetrius came to Cyrene, he became the lover of her mother, Apama. In a dramatic event, Bernice had him killed in Apama's bedroom. Berenice stood at the door and instructed the hired assassins not to hurt her mother while she attempted to protect her mother's lover. 

Berenice is said to have participated in the Nemean Games and the Olympic games at some unknown date. She had a strong equestrian background and was accustomed to fighting from horseback. When Berenice's father Magas, king of Cyrene in modern day Libya, and his troops were routed in battle, Berenice mounted a horse, rallied the remaining forces, killed many of the enemy, and drove the rest to retreat.

After the death of Demetrius, Berenice married Ptolemy III,  the third king of the Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt.. More on Berenice II

Bernardo Strozzi,  (1581–1644)
Berenice, before 1644
Oil on canvas
86.5 × 71 cm (34.1 × 28 in)
Private collection

Berenice II, Queen of Egypt, when she cut off her long hair to dedicate it to the goddess Aphrodite in order to ensure the safe return of her husband, Ptolemy III.

Bernardo Strozzi, named il Cappuccino and il Prete Genovese (c. 1581 – 2 August 1644) was an Italian Baroque painter and engraver. A canvas and fresco artist, his wide subject range included history, allegorical, genre and portrait paintings as well as still lifes. Born and initially mainly active in Genoa, he worked in Venice in the latter part of his career. His work exercised considerable influence on artistic developments in both cities. He is considered a principal founder of the Venetian Baroque style. His powerful art stands out by its rich and glowing colour and broad, energetic brushstrokes. More on Bernardo Strozzi

Bernardo Strozzi, (1581–1644)
Berenice, c. 1640
Oil on canvas
El Paso Museum of Art

During her second husband's absence on an expedition to Syria, she dedicated locks of her hair to Aphrodite for his safe return and victory in the Third Syrian War, and placed the offering in the temple of the goddess at Zephyrium, on the Mediterranean coast of southern Turkey . By some unknown means, the hair offering disappeared when Ptolemy returned to Egypt, Conon of Samos explained the phenomenon in courtly phrase, by saying that it had been carried to the heavens and placed among the stars. The name Coma Berenices or Berenice's hair, applied to a constellation, commemorates this incident. This made the locks of Berenice the only war trophy in Greco-Roman sky.


The city of Euesperides was refounded by her and received her name, Berenice (near the location of Benghazi). The asteroid 653 Berenike, discovered in 1907, also is named after Queen Berenice. More on queen Berenice II

Andrew Geddes, ARA (British, 1783-1844)
Portrait of a Lady, reputed to be Charlotte Nasymth 
Oil on canvas
72 x 60 cm. (28 3/8 x 23 5/8 in.)
Private collection


Charlotte Nasmyth (British painter) 1804 - 1884 was a member of a large and gifted family, Charlotte was the sixth daughter of the landscape painter Alexander Nasmyth. All the girls were talented artists, trained to draw and paint by their father so that they could run art classes from their Edinburgh home and eventually support themselves independently. Charlotte painted romantic landscapes which were widely exhibited. More on Charlotte Nasymth

Andrew Geddes ARA (5 April 1783 – 5 May 1844) was a Scottish portrait painter and etcher.

Geddes was born in Edinburgh. After receiving a good education in the high school and in the University of Edinburgh, he was for five years in the excise office, in which his father held the post of deputy auditor.

After the death of his father, who had opposed his desire to become an artist, he went to London and entered the Royal Academy schools. His first contribution to the exhibitions of the Royal Academy, a St John in the Wilderness, appeared at Somerset House in 1806, and from that year onwards Geddes was a fairly constant exhibitor of figure-subjects and portraits. He alternated for some years between London and Edinburgh, with some excursions on the Continent, but in 1831 settled in London, and was elected associate of the Royal Academy in 1832; and he died in London of tuberculosis in 1844. More on Andrew Geddes



Please visit my other blogs: Art CollectorMythologyMarine ArtPortrait of a Lady, The OrientalistArt of the Nude and The Canals of VeniceMiddle East Artists365 Saints365 Days, and Biblical Icons, also visit my Boards on Pinterest

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I don't own any of these images - credit is always given when due unless it is unknown to me. if I post your images without your permission, please tell me.

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Thursday, November 23, 2017

04 Paintings, PORTRAIT OF A LADY, FATIMA, Mrs. Bartlett and Queen Kiya, with Footnotes #19

Jules Joseph Lefebvre, 1836 - 1912
FATIMA, c. 1883
Oil on canvas
21 3/4 by 18 in., 55.2 by 45.7 cm
Private collection

Sold for 68,750 USD in February 2019

Jules Joseph Lefebvre (14 March 1834 – 24 February 1912) was a French figure painter, educator and theorist. Lefebvre was born in Tournan-en-Brie, Seine-et-Marne, on 14 March 1834. He entered the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in 1852 and was a pupil of Léon Cogniet.,He won the prestigious Prix de Rome in 1861. Between 1855 and 1898, he exhibited 72 portraits in the Paris Salon. In 1891, he became a member of the French Académie des Beaux-Arts.

He was professor at the Académie Julian in Paris. Lefebvre is chiefly important as an excellent and sympathetic teacher who numbered many Americans among his 1500 or more pupils. Among his famous students were Fernand Khnopff, Kenyon Cox, Félix Vallotton, Ernst Friedrich von Liphart, Georges Rochegrosse, the Scottish-born landscape painter William Hart, Walter Lofthouse Dean, and Edmund C. Tarbell, who became an American Impressionist painter.

Lefebvre died in Paris on 24 February 1912. More on Jules Joseph Lefebvre

John White Alexander, American, 1856-1915 
Woman in Black (Portrait of Mrs. Paul W. Bartlett), c. 1893 
Oil on canvas 
75 1/2 x 36 inches 
Private collection

Emily Montgomery, former wife of the sculptor Paul Wayland Bartlett, wrote of her portrait in a letter dated January 1, 1938: "I knew all the artists of note in Paris and I was the youngest of the artists' wives so I was rather popular... " She described the portrait as "one of John Alexander's earliest portraits, painted in 1894. Exhibited in the Paris salon the following year, with great success, that same year Mr. Alexander was made 'Hors Concours.' Her reminiscence of her Parisian sojourn more than forty years earlier sheds a uniquely personal perspective on the close-knit circle of American artists working abroad. More on this painting

John White Alexander (7 October 1856 – 31 May 1915) was an American portrait, figure, and decorative painter and illustrator.

Alexander was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, now a part of Pittsburgh. Orphaned in infancy, he was reared by his grandparents and, at the age of 12, became a telegraph boy. Edward J. Allen became an early supporter and patron of John. His talent at drawing attracted the attention of one of his employers, who assisted him to develop them.

He moved to New York City at the age of eighteen and worked in an office at Harper's Weekly, where he was an illustrator and political cartoonist. After an apprenticeship of three years, he travelled to Munich for his first formal training. He worked with Frank Duveneck. They travelled to Venice, where he profited by the advice of Whistler, and then he continued his studies in Florence, the Netherlands, and Paris.

His first exhibition in the Paris Salon of 1893 was a brilliant success and was followed by his immediate election to the Société Nationale des Beaux Arts. In 1901 he was named Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, and in 1902 he became a member of the National Academy of Design, where he served as President from 1909-1915. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and President of the National Society of Mural Painters. He served as President of the National Society of Mural Painters from 1914 to 1915. More on John White Alexander

Queen Kiya, Great Beloved Wife
Second wife of Akhenaten
18th dynasty

Queen Kiya is thought to have been a foreign princess, known originally as Tadukhipa sent from Mitanni to be married to Amenhotep III. Mitanni was a Hurrian-speaking state in northern Syria and southeast Anatolia from c. 1500–1300 BC. Mitanni kings were Indo-Iranians. Kiya may have been the Mitanni Princess Tadukhepa, daughter of King Tushratta. Kiya died before Akhenaten and was buried with considerable funerary treasure.

There were many representations of Queen Kiya at Amarna, where she is thought to have held considerable power.  Amarna,  the capital city newly established and built by the Pharaoh Akhenaten of the late Eighteenth Dynasty, and abandoned shortly after his death (1332 BC).

An Amarna relief depicting a woman undergoing a purification ritual
The large earings and style of wig are thought to be representative of Queen Kiya. 18th dynasty, reign of Akhenaten, circa 1353-1336 B.C.
Metropolitan Museum of Art.

In a few reliefs at Amarna, Kiya is shown in the company of a daughter, and some scholars have argued about her giving birth to two sons as well. Many scholars think that Kiya was the mother of Tutankhamun - which was the main reason for her favoured status and her titles. All indication are that Kiya was in favour before Year 9 or 10 of Akhenaten's reign, but after Year 11 (about the same time as Tutankhamun's birth) - she disappeared from view.

Kiya disappears from history during the last third of Akhenaten's reign. Her name and images were erased from monuments and replaced by those of Akhenaten's daughters. The exact year of her disappearance is unknown. One of the last datable instances of her name is a wine docket from Amarna that mentions Akhenaten's Year 11, indicating that Kiya's estate produced a vintage in that year. Whether she died, was exiled, or suffered some other misfortune, Egyptologists have often interpreted the erasure of her name as a sign of disgrace. More on Kiya




Please visit my other blogs: Art CollectorMythologyMarine ArtPortrait of a Lady, The OrientalistArt of the Nude and The Canals of VeniceMiddle East Artists365 Saints365 Days, and Biblical Icons, also visit my Boards on Pinterest

Images are copyright of their respective owners, assignees or others. Some Images may be subject to copyright

I don't own any of these images - credit is always given when due unless it is unknown to me. if I post your images without your permission, please tell me.

I do not sell art, art prints, framed posters or reproductions. Ads are shown only to compensate the hosting expenses.

If you enjoyed this post, please share with friends and family.

Thank you for visiting my blog and also for liking its posts and pages.

Please note that the content of this post primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online.


Friday, November 10, 2017

05 Paintings, PORTRAIT OF A LADY, of the 17th & 19th C., with Footnotes. #17

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn,  (1606–1669)
Portrait of a Young Woman (Magdalena van Loo?), 1665
Oil on canvas
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

Titus van Rijn was born in Amsterdam on September 22, 1641, the fourth child of the famed artist Rembrandt van Rijn and his wife Saskia van Uylenburgh.

In 1668, Titus married Magdalena van Loo (1641-1669). The couple lived at Magdalena's mother's house on the Singel. They had one daughter. Titus van Rijn died in 1668 and was buried in the Westerkerk in Amsterdam. His wife, mother-in-law, and father all died a year later. More on Titus van Rijn

By the end of his long and productive career. This portrait, executed in the last years of the artist's life, provides an example of his masterful economy. Restricted to a rich range of blacks, loosely applied flesh tones and rough strokes of white, the light is carefully manipulated in the undefined strokes of white. The painting has been reduced in scale at an earlier period in its history, and probably was closer to a half-length portrait with a pendant of the sitter's husband: a possible candidate that has been proposed by scholars is the portrait of Titus, Rembrandt's son, at the Louvre. In that case, the woman portrayed in our painting is Magdalena van Loo, and the painting should be dated to 1668, when they married, which is consistent with the style of this fine late portrait by the master. More on this painting

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669) was a Dutch painter and etcher. He is generally considered one of the greatest painters and printmakers in European art and the most important in Dutch history. His contributions to art came in a period of great wealth and cultural achievement that historians call the Dutch Golden Age when Dutch Golden Age painting dominated Europe, was extremely prolific and innovative, and gave rise to important new genres in painting.
Having achieved youthful success as a portrait painter, Rembrandt's later years were marked by personal tragedy and financial hardships. Yet his etchings and paintings were popular throughout his lifetime, his reputation as an artist remained high, and for twenty years he taught many important Dutch painters. His self-portraits form a unique and intimate biography, in which the artist surveyed himself without vanity and with the utmost sincerity.
In his paintings and prints he exhibited knowledge of classical iconography, which he molded to fit the requirements of his own experience; thus, the depiction of a biblical scene was informed by Rembrandt's knowledge of the specific text, his assimilation of classical composition, and his observations of Amsterdam's Jewish population. Because of his empathy for the human condition, he has been called "one of the great prophets of civilization. More on Rembrandt


Jan Frederik Pieter Portielje, (1829-1895) 
JEUNE FEMME À LA RICHE COIFFE ROUGE 
YOUNG LADY WITH A RICH RED SCARF 
Oil on panel
60 X 48cm (23 5/8 x 18 7/8 IN.)
Private collection

Jan Frederik Pieter Portielje (Amsterdam, 1829 - 1908) was a Dutch-Belgian painter. He was the tenth child by Gerrit Portielje, bookseller and publisher in Amsterdam, and Jacoba Zeegers. He studied at the Academy of Amsterdam from 1842 to 1849 with, among others, Valentine Bing and Jan von Braet Uberfeldt. Between 1851 and 1853 he stayed several times for extended periods of time in Paris, possibly during the summer months when the Academy was closed due to holidays. He also worked as a portraitist and as such had a growing clientele in Brussels and Antwerp.

His oeuvre includes portraits, scenes of elegant ladies in gardens, parks, or luxurious interiors. The interiors are either heavy or elegant neo-Baroque Napoleon III. He painted Western and Southern or Oriental women, often adorned with jewels. His painting are realistic, with an eye for detail and texture, intended as an elegant genre painting without much depth.

On some paintings he collaborated with another artist. There are paintings known, together with Frans Lebret (1820-1909) and Eugène Remy Maes (1849-1931).


After his studies Portielje remained in Antwerp. He married there in 1853. More on Jan Frederik Pieter Portielje


William-Adolphe Bouguereau, (1825–1905)
Berceuse (Le coucher), c. 1873
oil on canvas
112 x 86.5 cm
Private collection

Starting in 1865, Bouguereau became enamored with the theme of mothers and children and began a series of paintings dedicated to this subject matter. 

Berceuse (Le coucher) was painted in the artist's Paris studio in 1873. In the present painting, a young Roman mother holds a naked infant and is gently moving him into his cradle. The central group is framed by the draped cradle to the left of the composition and the large stone fireplace that dominates the background. The figures, clearly a secularized interpretation of a Virgin and Child. More on this painting

William-Adolphe Bouguereau (November 30, 1825 – August 19, 1905) was a French academic painter and traditionalist. In his realistic genre paintings he used mythological themes, making modern interpretations of classical subjects, with an emphasis on the female human body. During his life he enjoyed significant popularity in France and the United States, was given numerous official honors, and received top prices for his work. As the quintessential salon painter of his generation, he was reviled by the Impressionist avant-garde. By the early twentieth century, Bouguereau and his art fell out of favor with the public, due in part to changing tastes. In the 1980s, a revival of interest in figure painting led to a rediscovery of Bouguereau and his work. Throughout the course of his life, Bouguereau executed 822 known finished paintings, although the whereabouts of many are still unknown. More William-Adolphe Bouguereau

Roberto Manetta, Italy
Mother nature
Photography
39.4 H x 27.6 W x 15.7 in
Private collection


Mother Nature (sometimes known as Mother Earth or the Earth-Mother) is a common personification of nature that focuses on the life-giving and nurturing aspects of nature by embodying it, in the form of the mother.

The earliest written usage is in Mycenaean Greek, "Mother Gaia",  (13th or 12th century BC). The various myths of nature goddesses such as Inanna/Ishtar show that the personification of the creative and nurturing sides of nature as female deities. Later medieval Christian thinkers did not see nature as inclusive of everything, but thought that she had been created by God; her place lay on earth, below the unchanging heavens and moon. Nature lay somewhere in the center, with agents above her (angels), and below her (demons and hell). For the medieval mind she was only a personification, not a goddess. More on Mother nature

Roberto Manetta is a traveling freelance photographer, Film and digital photography, since 1999. "No digital manipulation,only photography My passion comes from nature, adventure stories, fantasy films that have contributed phenomenally to my project ideas and the major part of my photographs. I am always very attentive, in all of my movements, in everything surrounding me. I often dream about adventures, fairy tales and mythological women. I look around at the objects surrounding me, with attention, searching for a link between a nude body more than a face. Geometric lines and original compositions are always at the centre of my attention when I launch upon a new project. I don’t really like the classic approach to nude photography. During the years I tried to maintain in all my productions a quality that re-conducted to classical photography, the one which is created without the need of much digital elaboration" More on Roberto Manetta


Eugène Delacroix,  (1798–1863)
Mademoiselle Rose, c. 1817-1824
Oil on canvas
81 × 65 cm (31.9 × 25.6 in)
Louvre Museum

Mademoiselle Rose, an artists' model who according to Delacroix's biographer, posed several times for him and for Richard Parkes Bonington, and who perhaps distributed her favours impartially between the two artists.

The upward trend of his work, clearly seen in this painting, brings its date to the period 1820-1822, but cannot be fixed precisely. However, the nude has not only a pictorial interest: Delacroix brings to the painting an emotion which is firmly rooted in Romanticism. Moreover, the slight timidity of the attitude, the somewhat anxious expression of the face, give to this life-class painting a quality of humanity that is purely French Romantic. More on Mademoiselle Rose

Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix (26 April 1798 – 13 August 1863) was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school.

As a painter and muralist, Delacroix's use of expressive brushstrokes and his study of the optical effects of colour profoundly shaped the work of the Impressionists, while his passion for the exotic inspired the artists of the Symbolist movement. A fine lithographer, Delacroix illustrated various works of William Shakespeare, the Scottish author Walter Scott and the German author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

Delacroix took for his inspiration the art of Rubens and painters of the Venetian Renaissance, with an attendant emphasis on colour and movement rather than clarity of outline and carefully modelled form. Dramatic and romantic content characterized the central themes of his maturity, and led him not to the classical models of Greek and Roman art, but to travel in North Africa, in search of the exotic. Friend and spiritual heir to Théodore Géricault, Delacroix was also inspired by Lord Byron, with whom he shared a strong identification with the "forces of the sublime", of nature in often violent action.


However, Delacroix was given to neither sentimentality nor bombast, and his Romanticism was that of an individualist. In the words of Baudelaire, "Delacroix was passionately in love with passion, but coldly determined to express passion as clearly as possible." MoreFerdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix







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