Judith Presenting Herself to Holofernes
Antonio Gionima
1720s
Italy
Oil on canvas
62.45
The Jewish heroine Judith is famous for beheading the Assyrian general Holofernes, who had laid siege to her town. While most artists chose to depict the beheading, Gionima picked the moment when the two first meet. Pretending to desert her people, the rich and beautiful widow Judith has just sneaked into the enemy camp with her maid. Holofernes is instantly enamored of her. The composition focuses on the ravishing figure of Judith, brightly lit and clothed in vibrant colors, while Holofernes has a supporting role.
Gionima painted in the grand classical style that prevailed in 18th-century Bologna. His promising career was cut short by his death at age thirty-five.
Portrait of a Girl
Georg Pencz
1547
Germany
Oil on canvas
68.41.5
This young woman clearly comes from a prosperous family. The family crests in the painting have not yet been identified, unfortunately, and her identity remains a mystery. Georg Pencz was the official city painter of Nuremberg, Germany, when he made this portrait. He had been banished from the city 22 years earlier because he supported radical Protestantism, in defiance of the City Council that was thoroughly Catholic at the time. Just a few weeks later, however, the city switched to the Protestant side and Pencz was welcomed back into its good graces.
Portrait of a Noblewoman
Unknown , English or Flemish
c. 1550
Oil on panel
England
87.6
The woman in this portrait was likely connected to the English court or royal household. She wears a French hood and an elaborate gold brooch, both upper-class indicators. The scene on the brooch shows a seated woman playing what appears to be a lute, with the inscription “Praise the Lorde for ever more.” Her portable prayer book is encased in gold, a type of “girdle book” that was also a high-status item among ladies of the court.
The picture was traditionally attributed to Hans Holbein the Yonger, the German painter who served as a court painter to Henry VIII (reign 1509-1547). But it is more likely painted later, by an artist who served a subsequent Tudor monarch. The scholar Roy Strong assigned it to "Circle of William Scrots" ( "The English Icon," 1969).
This picture was dated by dendrochronological evidence to around 1540-45, but this scientific analysis can no longer be supported. The sitter's dress is characteristic of a refined courtly style of that period, or later. Indeed, the patterned high collar and the velvet sleeves and elaborated cuffs of her dress are very similar to something worn by Mary I in the portrait putatively ascribed to William Scrots (Strong 1969, p. 73). The present painting was once identified as Mary but the resemblance is not convincing.The sitter is better described as a figure at the Tudor court, possibly a lady in waiting and possibly, because of the provenance, a member of the Bodenham family who served the Tudors, or were active in the Elizabethan era.
Portrait of Charlotte of France
Jean Clouet the Younger
c. 1522
Oil on cradled panel
35.7.98
Princess Charlotte was the daughter of King Francis I of France, whose court was an international center for the arts. Her rich clothing and jeweled cap show her high status. Her rosary indicates that she was a devout Catholic. She was about seven years old at the time of this portrait, and she died at the age of eight. European royal families commissioned portraits of their children to record their development and often exchanged these pictures with other royal houses as a diplomatic gesture.
Portrait of George Washington
Thomas Sully
c. 1820
United States
Oil on canvas
32.12
This painting is a copy of one of Gilbert Stuart's best-known portraits of George Washington, which was finished in 1800 and formerly owned by the New York Public Library. Sully made many copies of Stuart's portraits of President Washington for government buildings and historical societies because Stuart could not meet the astonishing demand for them.
In this portrait, Washington's right hand rests on a copy of the Constitution. The sword alludes to his military heroism.
Portrait of Moritz Buchner
and
Portrait of Anna Buchner, née Lindacker
Lucas Cranach the Elder
c. 1520
German
Oil on panel
57.11
These companion portraits have been identified as Moritz Büchner and his wife, Anna Lindacker Büchner. Moritz was a successful merchant and city alderman, part of the newly affluent middle class that emerged with the growth of capitalism in Germany in the 1500s. Lucas Cranach, the court artist to Frederick III of Saxony, was commissioned by the Büchners to paint their likenesses for posterity. Here, Cranach captures the confidence, pride, and ambition that often accompany newly acquired wealth and improved social status. The date of the painting appears with Cranach’s signature, a winged serpent, on the extreme left of Moritz’s portrait.
Lucas Cranach the Elder
c. 1520
German
Oil on panel
57.10
For many years, Lucas Cranach composed his subjects in wedding portraits the very same way: a seated half-figure, hands in the lap, one resting over the other. Unlike her husband, though, Anna Buchner does not look directly at the viewer, which would have been considered immodest. Her body, draped in expensive garments, a pearl-studded tiara, golden hairnet, heavy gold chain, and a great number of rings with rubies and emeralds, was a showcase to display her family’s wealth.
Portrait of Olive Craster
Sir Nathaniel Dance-Holland
1762
England
Oil on canvas
2015.81
Olive Craster, an heiress from a distinguished family, and husband George embarked on an expensive and extensive period of travel across France and Italy shortly after their marriage, throughout which Olive kept meticulous notes of her purchases, including clothes and other fashionable accessories. As a testament to female expression and experience in the eighteenth century, Dance’s portrait is a rare, almost singular survival. Mia’s collection is also weak in British 18th century portraiture, and this picture is a very welcome enhancement.
The Union of Love and Friendship
Pierre-Paul Prud'hon
c. 1793
France
Oil on canvas
64.50
Pierre-Paul Prud'hon was known for his allegorical paintings. The winged youth holding a torch is probably Love, portrayed as the Roman god Cupid, and the female figure would then represent Friendship. The theme is most likely the union of these two ideals, indicated by their embrace.
Prud'hon's inventive allegories often remain enigmatic, however, and other interpretations are possible. The rosy-skinned female figure may personify the art of painting and her pale companion the art of sculpture. Or the two may be Cupid and Psyche, whose love affair is recounted in antique Roman literature.
The impressive frame is itself an important work of French Neoclassical art. The carved ornament embodies le goût grec (‘Greek taste’) style of the late 18th century, influenced by the resurgence of interest in the classical world and archaeological excavations.
Conservation of the frame was generously funded by Nivin MacMillan and Mary O. Olson.
Venus and Adonis
Nicolas Mignard (Mignard d'Avignon)
c. 1650
France
Oil on canvas
87.5
In Greek myth, Venus, the goddess of love and beauty, adored the handsome mortal Adonis. She warned him about the dangers of hunting, but he ignored her and was killed by a wild boar. Here, as he sets out, spear in hand and dogs in tow, she pleads with him to stay. Heartbroken at his death, she transformed his blood into anemones, the fragile flowers visible in the shadows behind her.
This painting is in the classicizing style popular in France during the 1600s—a monumental composition with idealized, half-dressed figures. A gifted colorist, Mignard used bold color combinations and a luminous palette to brilliant effect in Adonis’s drapery and the purple canopy above Cupid.
Comments