The details of art

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Details of art is taking a break. From now on you can find details and stories on my Insta artpophistory. Best wishes and thank you for the likes and reposts! 

Oh, and this detail I found in lovely Parma. It is the well dressed Don Filippo di Borbone (Philip, Duke of Parma) by Laurent Pecheux. 

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A very peculiar detail in Rubens’ enormous ‘Feast of Venus’, in which two women offer dolls to the goddess, according to the museum website  ‘so that the goddess may preserve them from uncontrollable desire’. I had no idea so I stared at the detail for at least 30 seconds, wondering what I was looking at. 

* Rubens, The Feast of Venus, 1635/36, Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna

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Floral gold brocade fashionable cuffs

Frans van der Mijn, Portrait of Jan Pranger, 1742, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam

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Two ladies on a night out, two marvelous hats - and a fantastic technique of print: crachis, with which Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec created that misty sphere of tiny dots.  

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, The Grand Theater Box, 1897, colour litho, Van Gogh Museum

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White lace on the skirt of the Queen Dowager Juliane Marie.

*Vigilius Eriksen, The queen dowager Juliane Marie, 1776, Statens Museum for Kunst Copenhagen.

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A child from the Waagepetersen family in a great outfit (the belt!). Incredible that the artist saw and painted that typical hanging on the leg of Dad - such a natural posture of feeling safe. It gives the whole painting a homely feel.   

* Wilhelm Bendz, The Waagepetersen Family, 1830, Staten Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

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This is an unexpected and instantly favorite one. Because just looking at the isolated detail, it is hard to tell from which period the painting is - could be 19th Cent, could be today. The colour tones are marvelous, as are the vertical lines. A darling, hidden in the margins of the attention grabbing main scene of Pieter de Hooch’s Card Players. 

*Card Players, 1658, British Royal Collection

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This is probably the most beautiful person in back light I have ever seen in a painting. I can wonder for hours about his face which, frustratingly, we will never see. 

*Pieter de Hooch, Card Players in a sun lit room, 1658, British Royal Collection - until 8th January 2017 in the exhibtion Vermeer and his Contemporaries in Mauritshuis The Hague

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Another child’s toy. A sailboat made out of what appears to be the sole of a shoe. I love it. No attribute or special meaning this time, just part of a merry company, that loosely moralizes the all too improvident behavior of man. 

* Jan Steen, Merry company in a tavern, Royal Collection of Queen Elizabeth, Windsor. Shown in the exhibition  Vermeer and his contemporaries in Mauritshuis The Hague until 8th January.

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Boy playing with a little windmill, a child’s toy that is represented in many art works from the Middle Ages. This boy is sitting in front of the Holy Family and is part of the Holy Kinship. He is the son of Maria Cleophae and thus a cousin of Jesus. These cousins are believed to be the future disciples of Christ. Because this boy is holding the windmill upside down, making it look like a staff, he is possibly Saint Jude Taddaeus, who as an adult is represented with a halberd.

(Thanks to Annemarieke Willemsen from the Rijksmuseum voor Oudheden in Leiden for the explanation) 

* Winged altar, Northern Rhine, 1516, Museum Kunstpalast Düsseldorf

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To prevent a ring from sliding off the finger and to emphasize the lily white skin of the soft hand, this woman wears a thin ribbon around her wrist that is connected to the rock. 

* Marcus Gheeraerts, Portrait of a woman in red, 1620, Tate Britain, Londen

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Wonderful cameo on a black ribbon representing Prudence, a lady holding a mirror, as the best virtue a woman could have; the cardinal virtue stands for wisdom, but also timing, good judgment, and common sense. 

* Hans Eworth,  Portrait of an Unknown Lady, circa 1565, Tate Britain, London

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Here’s a little boy, reluctant to witness the circumcision of the Lord.  The nip in his pretzel and the holes in his shoes - they all seem to echo the practice that is going on next to him. 

* Andrea Mantegna, The Circumcision of Christ, circa 1460-64, Uffizi Firenze

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This woman looks so dignified; her open-hearted gaze, the heavy head scarf with the fine lace head band underneath, the collar. She’s just visiting the daily fish market on an early 17th Century morning in Dordrecht.

* Jacob Cuyp, The fish market, 1627, Dordrechts Museum 

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The devil tempting Saint Benedict by threatening to throw a stone :)

* Neroccio dei Landi, Saint Benedict at prayer, 1480, Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence

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Same artist as the last detail, and the same beautifully luxurious lace. But now on the collar of a man who is also wearing plate armour and has awesome rockstar long hair. Great paradoxical detail.

* Godefridus Schalcken, Portrait of Diederick Hoeufft, circa 1680, Mauritshuis The Hague 

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Godefridus Schalcken, who’s work I never really took much notice of before, paints ridiculously beautiful costumes - especially the thick lace that returns in several portraits of men and women in his exhibition in Dordrecht at this moment (until 26th June at the Dordrechts Museum)

* Godefridus Schalcken, Portrait of his wife Françoisia van Diemen, circa 1679