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Possibly Cupid Preparing Venus for an Amorous Encounter with Mars
Artist: Antonio Zucchi, RA (Italian, 1726-1796)
Date: c. 1773
Medium: Oil on canvas
Collection: National Trust Collections, London, United Kingdom
Description
Classical scene two women, Venus and a maidservant holding a suit of armour, and with Cupid undoing Venus's buskin. Mars, who is not to be seen has already taken off his slippers and armour, and Venus is pointing to the bed.
Edward Smith Stanley (1752–1834), Twelfth Earl of Derby, Elizabeth, Countess of Derby (Lady Elizabeth Hamilton, 1753–1797), and Their Son (Edward Smith Stanley, 1775–1851)
Artist: Angelica Kauffmann (Swiss, 1741–1807)
Date: ca. 1776
Medium: Oil on canvas
Collection: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, NY, United States
Description
In an imagined interior brimming with references to classical antiquity, this young aristocratic family makes a highly fashionable display of domestic bliss. The countess’s costume is vaguely classical, while her husband wears stylish fancy dress inspired by Van Dyck’s portraits from a century before. Unfortunately, the marriage was an unhappy one; roughly two years after Kauffmann painted this portrait, the countess left her husband for a lover. After her death, he married the actress Elizabeth Farren, whose celebrated portrait by Thomas Lawrence hangs in Gallery 628.
Portrait of the Comtesse du Cayla and her Two Children
Artist: François Gérard (French, 1770–1837)
Date: c. 1825-1825
Medium: Oil on canvas
Collection: Château de Maisons, Maisons-Laffitte, France
Portrait of Stanislaus Augustus Poniatowski in Coronation Robes
Artist: Marcello Bacciarelli (Polish-Italian, 1731–1818)
Date: c. 1790
Medium: Oil paint on canvas
Collection: National Museum in Krakow, Poland
Stanisław August Poniatowski
Stanisław August [Stanislaus Augustus] Poniatowski was elected king of Poland in 1764. Especially at the beginning of his reign, he was neither very popular with the nobility nor as influential as his rich family, the Czartoryski Familia. Therefore, he needed a formal portrait emphasizing the special significance of his person as the king of Poland and strengthening the conviction about the lawfulness of his rule, actually assumed with the considerable support of Russia. Moreover, European courts, for example in Vienna and Versailles, were interested in possessing a portrait of the new Polish king. The newly elected monarch sought a talented portraitist, familiar with the latest trends in Western European art, who would be able to paint a splendid formal portrait. He wished to entrust this task to Marcello Bacciarelli, an Italian painter who had stayed at the court of Augustus III the Saxon in Warsaw for several years, leaving in the country a large number of excellent portraits of aristocrats. The king did not want to be portrayed in armor, but in the formal dress that he was wearing during the coronation ceremony: a coat lined with ermine fur, decorated with Polish eagles, a frock coat and trousers, with his hand rested against the baton of the military commander and royal regalia lying on the table beside him. Taking the king's instructions into consideration, Bacciarelli painted the portrait following the en gala pattern dating back to the time of the French absolute rulers, but in the more recent Rococo style. The king's pose was light, refined, elegant and graceful, which was in tune with the fashion of the day. The monarch noted down in his diary that the portrait caught the best likeness of him.
Maximilian II (1527-1576) and His Wife Maria of Spain (1528-1603) and His Children Anna (1549-1580), Rudolf (1552-1612) and Ernst (1553-1595)
Artist: Giuseppe Arcimboldo (Italian, 1526-1593)
Date: c. 1563
Medium: Oil painting
Collection: Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, Austria
Description
Maximilian (1527-1576) was the eldest son of emperor Ferdinand I. and Anna of Hungary. In 1548 he married his cousin Maria. Her father Karl V made him governor of Spain. He inherited Bohemia, Hungary and the Austrian countries. In 1564 he was crowned Roman Emperor. Maximilian is shown together with his wife Maria of Spain (1528 - 1603) and his children Anna (1549 - 1580), Rudolf (1552 - 1612) and in the cradle Ernst (1553 -1595).
It is quite clear that the painter Arcimboldo settled down in Vienna in 1563. If the attribution to Arcimboldo rightly exists, he worked with models. According to technical research the painter used a kind of templates. Moreover there are single portraits of Maria, Anna and Maximilian II left.
Empress Elisabeth (1837-1898) in Light Blue Dress
Artist: Josef Horaczek
Date: 1858
Medium: Oil on canvas
Collection: Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, Austria
Empress Elisabeth of Austria
Elisabeth (born Duchess Elisabeth Amalie Eugenie in Bavaria; 24 December 1837 – 10 September 1898), nicknamed Sisi or Sissi, was Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary from her marriage to Franz Josef I of Austria on 24 April 1854 until her assassination in 1898.
Irene di Spilimbergo
Artist: Titian (Venetian, 1488/1490 - 1576)
Artist: Gian Paolo Pace ( Venetian, 1528 - 1560)
Date: c. 1560
Medium: Oil on canvas
Collection: National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, United States
Description
Irene di Spilimbergo (17 October 1538 - 17 December 1559) was an Italian Renaissance painter and poet.
She is mostly known for an effusive volume of poetic elegies published two years after her death by Dionigi Atanagi and containing 279 Italian and 102 Latin poems, some anonymous, and others either penned or attributed to contemporary cultural figures including Lodovico Dolce, Torquato Tasso, Titian, Girolamo Muzio, Luigi Tanzillo, Giuseppe Bettusi, and Benedetto Varchi.
Irene di Spilimbergo was about 20 years old when this painting was begun. Along with a pendant portrait of her older sister, Emilia, the two paintings were probably initially commissioned in anticipation of the prospective marriages of the two sitters. Instead, with the premature death of Irene two years later, the function of her portrait was suddenly changed to become an elegy for what might have been. The inscription on the lower right reads, “If the fates had allowed.”
Euterpe, the Muse of Music and Lyric Poetry
Artist: Simon Vouet (French, 1590–1649)
Date: 1630's
Medium: Oil on oak panel
Collection: Private Collection
Description
This charming representation of Euterpe originally formed part of a dispersed series depicting the nine Muses which was most likely painted for a learned man familiar with Ancient Greek and Renaissance literature.
