Portraiture
Mossgreen Auctions – Collection Thomas Hamel and Martyn Cook
On May 20 at Sydney Mossgreen Auctions will offer for sale a collection from Thomas Hamel Interiors and Martyn Cook Antiques of art antiques and decorative arts
What is an Antique?
What is an Antique? An antique is something made in a previous era. However, according to antique dealers, their associations and the tax man, it is not really that simple at all.
The Impressionists – A Painterly Pleasant French Revolution
The art of the Impressionists became popular because people from all walks of life, nationalities and cultures understood that its message was all about celebrating life
Andy Warhol – Developing his Model in Dynamic New Directions
The Metropolitan Museum at New York says artists have developed Pop Art Prince Andy Warhol’s model in dynamic new directions and will prove it with a 2012 show – Regarding Warhol: Fifty Artists Fifty Years
Lord Byron – A Rock Star Poet in an Age of Extravagance
For historians the Regency era in England is about romantics and revolutionaries, poets and princes, architects and artists. It was a paradox where extremes met
Gaining Enlightenment – Politics, Poetry, Passion & Liberty
The late 18th and early 19th century in England, Europe and America was a period of romantics and revolutionaries, politics, poetry, passion and enlightenment
Archibald Prize Winner 2012 Tim Storrier – Humour and Pathos
How great is artist, raconteur, amateur poet and passionate Australian Tim Storrier’s portrait of himself, which has won the Archibald Prize for 2012. Humble, full of humour and pathos, that interior universe to which man is drawn, attracted by its complexities and contradictions. It certainly implies that something more than just simple emotion is going [...]
Napoleon: Revolution to Empire @ NGV – A Winter Masterpiece
Napoleon – destiny power and passion – the legend comes alive in the Melbourne Winter Masterpieces Exhibition 2012 at the NGV (National Gallery Victoria). The show Napoleon: Revolution to Empire is sure to engage all observers, who will more than likely be completely overwhelmed at the magnificence and quality of the over 500 art works and objet d’art featured.
Giuseppe Castiglione – Painter @ Court of Chinese Emperors
It was during the Yuan dynasty (c1260-1368) that knowledge of ancient Cathay (China) first filtered through to the west. Mongolian leader Kublai Khan gained the title Great Khan, by defeating his brothers and embracing Chinese culture. In 1260 Kublai Khan (1215-1294) set about rebuilding the city of Peking as his winter capital, governing along Chinese [...]
Abydos & Herculaneum – Helping Us to Understand Antiquity
Professor David O’Connor and Professor Andrew Wallace-Hadrill have spent a great deal of time excavating and conserving the sites of Abydos in Egypt and Herculaneum in Italy respectively. Both continue to yield spectacular discoveries invaluable to classical historians and the world at large.
Women of Influence – Painter Angelica Kauffmann
As far as women are concerned the Age of Reason in the eighteenth century was inappropriately named. This was a period when the role of women, especially in a professional sphere, took a retrograde step. Private salons hosted by wealthy and powerful women reached the height of their influence at this time with many voices raised in favour of women’s rights, but usually to no avail.
Désirée – Is This a Portrait of Napoleon’s First Fiancée?
A previously ‘un-identified’ sitter, in 1st Empire style dress is one of the great works of art in the David Roche Foundation Collection at Adelaide in South Australia. Could she be Désirée Clary, former fiancée of Napoleon Bonaparte and later Queen Desidera of Sweden?
Portraits – Restoration to Revolution & the Age of Romance
Portraiture, established as a genre in England during the sixteenth century, became part of a national ‘persona’ style during the eighteenth century
Jane Austen Revealed at Oxford – World Book Day 2012
The Bodleian Libraries at Oxford in England will mark this year’s World Book Day on the 1st March with a series of events dedicated to legendary British writer Jane Austen.
Portraits – From The Middle Ages to Restoration England
Portraiture is a language of expression with its own grammar and vocabulary. During the fourteenth century paintings of individuals were given a third dimension
Women of Influence – Noblewoman Diane de Poitiers
If beauty was accompanied by intelligence those who used both attributes skilfully seemed to have been the most successful. Fifteenth century beauty Diane de Poitiers (1499-1566) was considered an ‘ardent feminist sure of her own worth – and a child of her time’. She had all the attributes, plus a strong will and a great strength of purpose. These were both very necessary skills for survival in the world of political intrigue that surrounded the court of the last medieval and first Renaissance King of France Francois I whose court was the envy of Europe.
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