Fables & Gables

Art history, contemporary art, museum studies, architecture, & material culture.

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Elephant Capital from the Great Temple at Petra, 1st Century BCE-1st Century CE Department of Antiquities of Jordan, Amman [Pictures via Dr. Sarah Bond on Twitter]

This capital can be seen at the current exhibition ‘The World between Empires: Art and Identity in the Ancient Middle East’ at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The label reads: “Excavations at the building known as the Great Temple at Petra uncovered hundreds of column capitals whose corners terminate in elephant heads. Unique to Nabataean architecture, they derive from Ionic column capitals, which end in volutes (spiral scrolls) at either side. Some adaptations have four volutes, one at each corner, which are transformed in this design into elephant heads whose trunks evoke the spirals of the original form. The elephants may refer to Dionysos and his mythological journey to India.”

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Devils - From a Fifteenth Century French Illumination of Guillaume de Digulleville’s poem Le Pèlerinage de la vie humaine

Browse this manuscript here.

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Walter Hilton, Scala Perfectionis, in Latin, with Middle English and Latin verse, illustrated manuscript on vellum [England (probably Oxford), third quarter of the fifteenth century (most probably 1456-65)]

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La Gare De L’Est - Eugene Galien-Laloue, c. 19th century 

Gouache on paper,  7½ by 12¼ in. (19 by 31 cm)

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The Supper at Emmaus - Matthias Stomer, 17th century Oil on canvas, 107.5 x 173.4 cm.m (42 1/4  x 68 1/4  in.) The subject was a favourite of Stomer’s, the disciples’ sudden recognition of Christ as he breaks the bread lending itself perfectly to the drama the artist sought to achieve in all his composition pieces. Cleopas (in the hat with scallop shell) and the unnamed disciple are instantly taken aback in shock. Stomer’s work from his Roman and early Neapolitan periods is unequivocally Caravaggesque, often to the point of exaggeration, striving to achieve the most dramatic effect possible. The silhouetting of the foremost disciple, whose outstretched arm shields the direct glow of the candle, is a conceit he had probably learned from Gerrit van Honthorst or another of the Utrecht Caravaggisti before he left for Rome in 1630. We see it, for example, in Honthorst’s Denial of St Peter from c. 1623 (Minneapolis, Institute of Arts).1 In other examples of the subject Stomer arranges his three protagonists more conventionally around the rear, left and right sides of the small table, the flame glowing naked in the centre: see, for example, those in Grenoble, Musée des Beaux-Arts and Naples, Capodimonte.2 It is an idiosyncrasy of this version that much of our view is blocked by the back of a disciple, seated at the side of the table directly in front of us, as he recoils, rising to his feet, in surprise. Wayne Franits, who has inspected this painting first-hand, dates it to the early 1630s, which is to say to the years he spent in Rome from 1630, or to the period shortly after his arrival in Naples in 1633. [x]

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Arriving for the Ball, Murano - Eugen von Blaas, 1870 Oil on canvas, 150 by 220cm., (59 by 86½in.)

Blaas used a refined and detailed method to construct lively Venetian genre scenes celebrating the joie de vivre within a majestic historical framework, no more so than in Arriving for the Ball, Murano, awash with colour and narrative. Two ladies disembark from their gondola, watched over by two other guests, to be greeted by their expectant host, against the backdrop of the Venice skyline. On the terrace in the background, the evening's festivities are already underway. The sumptuous palette in the silks of the dresses and the flesh-tones of the faces reveals the influence of Eugen von Blaas' study of the techniques of Titian and the Venetian masters. Indeed the colourful troubadour costumes and the liveliness of the scene transport the viewer into Venice's Renaissance past, a reminder of the glorious history. Von Blaas' young people 'live their lives within the old walls of a still-important city, and become links in an apparently endless chain of generations who carry on the Venetian traditions and way of life' (Thomas Wassibauer, Eugen von Blaas, Hildesheim, 2005, p. 19). [x]

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Church Interior - Job Berckheyde, 1681 Oil on oak panel, 25.4 x 20.5 cm. (10 x 8 1/8  in.) This small, delicately-painted, and previously unpublished work is an extremely rare example of a church interior by Job Berckheyde to be signed and dated post 1680. Having travelled through Germany during the 1650s with his younger brother and pupil, Gerrit, Job returned to Haarlem in around 1660, where the two artists shared a house and possibly a studio as well. There, Job produced portraits, townscapes, hunting and genre scenes, and less than twenty views of the interior of St Bavo’s and other churches, drawing on the work of both Pieter Saenredam and Emanuel de Witte. [x]

[boschfemme]

Ginevra de Benci - Leonardo Da Vinci

“After you interact with Ginevra de Benci long enough, what at first seem like a vacant face and distant stare appear to be suffused with a haunting tinge of emotion. She seems pensive and ruminating, perhaps about her marriage or the departure of Bembo, or become of some deeper mystery. Her life was sad; she was sickly, and remained childless, but she also had an inner intensity. She wrote poetry, one line of which survives: I ask your forgiveness, I am a mountain tiger.” - Leonardo Da Vinci - Walter Isaacson

[fablesandgables]

Magic Tunic - Malam Nuhu, 1972

Cotton; Width: 181 centimetres, Length: 106 centimetres

Representative of a charm gown. Produced by Malam Nuhu for David Heathcote.  The gown has been elaborately painted with Qu'ranic texts and magic squares in green, purple and yellow paint. When the script was translated by Malam Ahmad Tahir it was revealed that there was a lack of coherency and consistency suggesting that the producer was not clear on the correct forms. It was later revealed from discussions with the producer that he had not previously produced such a gown and had in fact had never seen one, although they had been described to him. Despite the gowns lack of 'pedigree' Heathcote still identifies the item as intriguing because it demonstrates the producer’s ability to work outside of proscribed forms applying his own creativity. [x]

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Cormorans - Lin Fengmian, 20th century Cormorants, Ink and Color on Paper, 66 x 66 cm (26 by 26 in.)

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Lever de Lune A Overschie - Johan Barthold Jongkind, 1858 Oil on canvas,16 1/2 by 22 1/8 in. (41.9 by 56.2 cm)

Upon moving to Paris in 1846, Johan Barthold Jongkind promptly joined an influential creative circle which included Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Théodore Rousseau and Charles Baudelaire. Baudelaire was an ardent supporter of Jongkind’s, his position made clear in his controversial reviews of the Salons of 1845 and 1846, brazenly calling for artists to turn away from classical subjects and academic teachings and embrace “the heroism of modern life,” which the artist took to heart (Charles Baudelaire, Art in Paris 1845-1862: Salons and Other Exhibitions, translated by Jonathan Mayne, London, 1965, p. 30-1). After winning medals and enjoying great success and state purchases from the Paris Salons of 1851 and 1852, Jongkind returned to his home country in 1855. Here, he turned his focus to marine landscapes, which became his most iconic and celebrated subjects. In these compositions he lowers the horizon and focuses on an active expanse of sky, characteristics shared by the seventeenth-century Dutch masters and his friend and peer, Eugène-Louis Boudin. In the present work, a complex and rigorously painted nocturne, Jongkind offers a peaceful view of modern industrial bustle and explores the effects of light on water. Backlit by a shining full moon, the row boat of the foreground is overwhelmed by the towering windmills and tall-mast ships, which crowd the atmospheric harbor of Rotterdam. [x]

[fablesandgables]

St. Anthony Abbot - Unknown Spanish or Italian Artist, Italian, 16th century Polychrome wood, Height 46 in. (116.84 cm.)

The author of the present figure may have been a Spanish sculptor active in Italy in the first quarter of the sixteenth century. The gestures and twisting of the figure as well as the expressive face are indicative of the first period of Florentine Mannerism, exemplified by the work of the Italian masters Giambologna and Cellini as well as Berruguete and Juan de Juni of Spain. [x]

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Masking Tradition DXIII - Kendell Geers, 2017

Acrylic on canvas, 53⅛ by 33 in. (135 by 84 cm.)

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Study for The Lint Makers - Mihály Munkácsy, 1871 Oil on Panel, 41 by 33cm. (16 by 13in.)

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Design for a Stage Set: The Temple of Neptune - Louis-Jean Desprez, 1792

Pen and black ink and watercolor, over traces of black chalk, 460 by 725 mm; 18 1/8  by 28 1/2  in

In 1783 Desprez's work was brought to the attention of the Swedish King, Gustav III, who was looking for someone to take charge of the stage decorations for the historical dramas he was then planning.  The King made Desprez an extremely generous offer, and the artist moved to Sweden in 1784.  There, despite initially primitive working conditions and much resentment from the resident Swedish artists, his first designs for the première performance of Queen Christina were a sensation, and for ten years he continued to produce magnificent set designs, architectural plans and historical paintings.  Following the assassination of King Gustav in 1792 Desprez's fortunes declined and his attempts to obtain commissions from other European courts failed.  He died in penniless obscurity in 1804. [x]

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Gladys Deacon, Duchess of Marlborough - Paul-César Helleu, early 20th Century Black, red and white chalk on paper, 17 1/4 by 24 in. (43.8 by 61 cm)

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A Pair of Icon Portraits of Christ and the Virgin - Unknown German Artist, 17th century Oil on canvas, each: 46 x 32 cm.; 18 1/8  x 12 5/8  in.