Claude Monet | Valley of the Petite Creuse, 1889

The striking effects of Monet’s several paintings of the Creuse Valley in central France are achieved through complex, superimposed layers of color, as he combined bold brushstrokes with intricate passages made up of many small touches.

Title: Valley of the Petite Creuse

Author: Claude Monet (French painter, 1840-1926)

Date: 1889

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 65.4 x 81.3 cm (25 3/4 x 32 in.)

Current location: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Georges Girardot | Le reverences de la lune, 1890

Georges Marie Julien Girardot (1856-1914) was a French figure, landscape and marine painter.

Girardot was born in Besançon, Doubs on 4 August 1856.

He was trained by the artist Albert Maignan in Paris.

Girardot was active in Paris, painting mostly genre paintings, female nudes and landscapes.

William Bouguereau | Joueur de flûte, 1878

In his accounts, Bouguereau gave a title of Tête d’enfant avec une flûte to the present work, yet the instrument depicted more closely resembles a piffero, an Italian folk instrument related to the modern oboe, which was used by the musical troupes who would descend from the hills around Rome to celebrate Christmas.

Both the music and the sweet expression of Bouguereau’s young musician likely evoked the artist’s happy memories of travel to Italy in the late 1840s.

Bouguereau had painted young musicians as early as 1870 in works like Pifferaro (Bartoli, no. 1870/80, and sold in these rooms April 18, 2007, lot 90).

Ludovico Carracci | The penitent Saint Peter, 1613

Although mentioned by Ludovico's earliest biographer Malvasia as early as 1678, all trace of this monumental and imposing image of repentance was lost until its rediscovery only thirty years ago.

Malvasia recorded how Ludovico had given to Count Camillo Bolognetti, a nobleman and occasional amateur painter in the Carracci workshop, 'la figura intera di quel S. Pietro piangente, così risentito e terribile'.

In a handwritten note included in the 1841 edition of his Felsina pittrice the picture is referred to as 'San Pietro piangente l'aversi negato discepolo di Cristo, figura sedente, meno del naturale'.

Hermann Krüger | Park near Rome, 1899

"Park near Rome" (View of the Alban Hills) is an 1899 oil painting by German landscape painter of the Düsseldorf School Hermann August Krüger (1834-1908).

After initially studying art in Munich, Hermann Krüger continued his education in Düsseldorf from 1867 onwards, having spent time in Dresden and Berlin in between.

There, Kruger was a private pupil of Oswald Achenbach and undertook numerous study trips to Italy and Egypt.

James Tissot | Holiday, 1876

The autumn sun glows through the yellow leaves of the horse chestnut tree in this picnic scene.

The setting is the garden of James Tissot’s house in St John’s Wood, London, very close to Lord’s cricket ground.

Artist: James Tissot (1836-1902)

Medium: Oil paint on canvas

Dimensions support: 762 × 994 × 20 mm frame: 925 × 1185 × 95 mm

Collection: Tate

John Joseph Enneking | Spring Hillside, 1899-1902

John Joseph Enneking was born in Ohio in 1841 and was orphaned at a young age. He began to paint at the age of five and developed a natural talent before travelling East to New York and Massachusetts.

He trained in Germany, Italy and France and he was the first American to return from Paris in 1874 after having painted with Claude Monet, Pissarro and Renoir in Monet’s gardens at Argentueil (where Enneking painted Monet’s wife and child).

Jean-Baptiste Greuze | Le uova rotte, 1756

Anche se questo dipinto venne eseguito a Roma e presenta ambiente e costumi italiani, la fonte del soggetto ritratto è un quadro olandese del Seicento dell’artista Frans van Mieris il Vecchio (1635-1681), Le uova rotte (Museo dell’Ermitage, San Pietroburgo), che l'artista francese Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725-1805) conosceva attraverso un’ incisione.

Le uova rotte simboleggiano la perdita della verginità.

Il bambino che cerca di ricomporre le uova rappresenta l’ignara innocenza dell’infanzia.

Il quadro suscitò una reazione favorevole quando fu esibito al Salon di Parigi nel 1757. | © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Jean Baptiste Greuze | Broken Eggs, 1756 (detail) | Metropolitan Museum of Art

Benjamin Osro Eggleston | Young Woman in a Theater Box, 1891

"Young Woman in a Theater Box" is an 1891 oil painting by Benjamin Osro Eggleston (1867-1937).

A landscape painter in the tonal style and figures, Benjamin Osro Eggleston was born in Belvidere, MN and studied art at the Minneapolis School of Fine Arts under Douglas Volk.

He also traveled to Paris where he completed additional studies.

Upon his return he established a studio in Brooklyn from which he worked and traveled.

From 1900-1920 he summered at the Old Lyme Art Colony and in the 1930's he spent his time in West Stockbridge, Massachusetts.

Howard Chandler Christy | The Christy Girl

Howard Chandler Christy (1873-1952) was an American artist and illustrator.

Famous for the "Christy Girl" - a colorful and illustrious successor to the "Gibson Girl" - Christy is also widely known for his iconic WWI military recruitment and Liberty loan posters, along with his 1940 masterpiece titled, Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States, which is installed along the east stairwell of the United States Capitol.

Karol Bąk, 1961

Karol Bąk artista - pittore, illustratore e grafico. I suoi dipinti sono caratterizzati da illusione e surrealismo.

Si è diplomato alla Scuola Secondaria di Belle Arti di Poznań come espositore di interni.

Nel 1984 ha iniziato gli studi presso la Facoltà di Grafica della Scuola Superiore Statale di Belle Arti (ora Accademia di Belle Arti di Poznań).

Si è laureato con lode nel 1989 ottenendo due diplomi sia in grafica con il professor Tadeusz Jackowski, che in disegno con il professor Jarosław Kozłowski.

Jakub Schikaneder | The Kampa Lovers, 1894

"The Kampa Lovers" is an 1894 painting by the Czech painter and professor Jakub Schikaneder (1855-1924).

Schikaneder is known for his soft paintings of the outdoors, often lonely in mood.

His paintings often feature poor and outcast figures and "combined neo-romantic and naturalist impulses".

Other motifs favoured by Schikaneder were autumn and winter, corners and alleyways in the city of Prague and the banks of the Vltava – often in the early evening light, or cloaked in mist.

Ralph Albert Blakelock | A Waterfall, Moonlight, 1886

This painting was shown at the National Academy of Design exhibition in 1886 and is a fine example of Blakelock's mature painting style.

Although it features elements that are typical of the artist's style -generalized and silhouetted forms, glowing moonlight, and thick paint- it is particularly strong and subtle in comparison.

The foliage that frames the edge of the canvas echoes the irregular contours of the tree so much that the forms seem almost able to interlock.

The brushwork is varied with pigment loosely appled to create a richly colored surface, especially in the boundary between the light sky and the dark leaves. | Source: © Metropolitan Museum of Art

Lionel Walden | Breaking Waves

Lionel Walden (1861-1933) was an American painter active in Hawaii, Cornwall and France.

He was born in Norwich, Connecticut.

He first became interested in art in Minnesota, where the family moved when his father became rector of an Episcopal Church there.

Penleigh Boyd | Silver Light, Hawkesbury River, 1922

During his lifetime, and in the decades following his premature death at the age of thirty-three, Australian artist Penleigh Boyd (1890-1923) received the greatest recognition for his evocative depictions of the Australian landscape shown under heightened atmospheric conditions.

Boyd’s life and art was inextricably connected to the First World War.

Serving with the Australian Imperial Forces in France, he was badly gassed at Ypres in September 1917, and convalesced in England, before returning home to Melbourne in March 1918.

Penleigh Boyd | Silver Light, Hawkesbury River, 1922 | Smith and Singer

Claude Monet | The Manneporte (Etretat), 1883

Monet spent most of February 1883 at Étretat, a fishing village and resort on the Normandy coast.

He painted twenty views of the beach and the three extraordinary rock formations in the area: the Porte d'Aval, the Porte d'Amont, and the Manneporte.

The sunlight that strikes the Manneporte has a dematerializing effect that permitted the artist to interpret the cliff almost exclusively in terms of color and luminosity.

Claude Monet | The Manneporte (Etretat), 1883 | Metropolitan Museum of Art

Claude Monet | Boating on the River Epte, 1890

Boating on the River Epte (also known as The Canoe on the Epte) is an 1890 oil painting by French impressionist artist Claude Monet.

It is currently housed at the São Paulo Museum of Art.

Between 1887 and 1890 Monet concerned himself with portraying scenes from the River Epte, which skirted his property at Giverny.

The sisters Suzanne and Blanche Hoschedé posed for this series of pictures, their late father being banker Ernest Hoschedé, a patron of the arts and collector of Monet, and their mother, Alice, who became Monet's second wife.

Claude Monet | Boating on the River Epte, 1890 | São Paulo Museum of Art

Claude Monet | Camille Monet à la fenêtre, 1873

In 1871, Monet took up residence in the Maison Aubry on rue Pierre Guienne in Argenteuil.

It was situated down the street from the train station, making it possible for the artist to commute to his Paris studio and return home in the evening.

Although Maison Aubry served as a frequent meeting place for Impressionist painters as well as collectors, writers, and journalists, this painting provides a rare glimpse into the interior of the Monets’ home.

Claude Monet | Camille Monet à la fenêtre, 1873 | Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond

Claude Monet | The Stroller (Suzanne Hoschede), 1887

This painting of Suzanne Hoschedé in the meadows just south of Le Pressoir, Monet's home at Giverny, was probably made in the summer of 1887.

She became Monet's preferred model in the period after the death of his first wife, Camille, in 1879, and before 1890, when he gave up plein-air figure painting.

The model was the daughter of Alice Hoschedé, whom Monet married in 1892. | Source: © Metropolitan Museum of Art

Odilon Redon | Melancholy, 1876

• "The artist lives only day by day, and is the recipient of the things that surround him; he transposes sensations from outside, according to what the fate reserves him, but transforms them relentlessly and tenaciously, in a manner determined by him alone".

Odilon Redon | Melancholy, 1876 | The Art Institute of Chicago

• "L'artista vive solo giorno per giorno, ed è destinatario delle cose che lo circondano; traspone le sensazioni dall'esterno, secondo ciò che il destino gli riserva, ma le trasforma senza sosta e tenacemente, in un modo determinato da lui solo".

Nikolay Dubovskoy | Hushing (Calm Before the Storm), 1890

Isaac Levitan: "Not everyone can convey such a capture from nature itself, like "Calm before the storm", where you feel not the author, but the elements themselves".

The painting Притихло" ("hushing" or "silencing", before the storm) display at the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg, is a masterpiece of Nikolay Nikanorovich Dubovskoy / Николай Никанорович Дубовской (1859-1918), a Russian landscape painter, associated with the Peredvizhniki (The Itinerants) - group of Russian realist artists who formed an artists' cooperative in protest of academic restrictions; it evolved into the Society for Travelling Art Exhibitions in 1870.

The artist's most famous and landmark painting, which placed his name among the most famous Russian landscape painters.

It marked the beginning of the "Landscape of Mood" genre, developed by Nikolay Dubovskoy and Isaac Levitan.

Nikolay Dubovskoy | Calm Before the Storm, 1890 | State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

Louis Rolland Trinquesse | After the Soirée, 1774

Louis Rolland Trinquesse (1746-1800) was a French Rococo painter.

He was a student at the Académie Royale from 1758 to at least 1770 and worked both as a portrait painter and a Genre painter.

His portraits are usually gentle and uncomplicated likenesses painted in pastel colours, for example the Young Girl (1777; Paris, Louvre).

Adolph von Menzel | Clara Schumann and Joseph Joachim in Concert, 1854

Adolph Friedrich Erdmann von Menzel (1815-1905) was a German Realist artist noted for drawings, etchings, and paintings.

Along with Caspar David Friedrich, he is considered one of the two most prominent German painters of the 19th century, and was the most successful artist of his era in Germany.

First known as Adolph Menzel, he was knighted in 1898 and changed his name to Adolph von Menzel.

Alphonse Spring | Violin Player, 1890

Alphons Spring (1843-1908) was a genre painter of the Munich School and co-founder of the artists' society Allotria in Munich.

Alphons Spring, who wrote himself Alfons Spring from around 1878, was born in Liepaja in Latvia and studied at the art school and academy in Saint Petersburg.

He moved to Munich 1870 where he became a student of Professor Wilhelm Diez.

Constance Marie Charpentier | Melancholy, 1801

Constance Marie Charpentier (1767-1849) was a French painter.

She specialized in genre scenes and portraits, mainly of children and women.

She was also known as Constance Marie Bondelu.

Constance-Marie Charpentier | Melancholy, 1801 | Musée de Picardie, Amiens

Edgar Degas | Combing the Hair, 1896

Women combing their hair, or having it combed, often appear in Degas’s work - for example, in his early Beach Scene, also in the National Gallery.

This late painting is one of his boldest treatments of the subject.

Here, a maid, wearing her servant’s uniform, combs the hair of her seated mistress, who is not yet fully dressed and who may also be pregnant.

Edgar Degas | Portrait of Estelle Musson Degas, 1872

Edgar Degas arrived in New Orleans in 1872 for an extended stay, two years after he had enlisted in the National Guard during the Franco-Prussian War, and two years before he would join a group of painters back in Paris for the first of what would become known as the Impressionist Exhibitions.

It was a pivotal time in his career, one that brought to the fore many important familial, artistic, and personal connections.

Claude Monet | The Japanese Bridge, 1900

In 1883, Claude Monet moved to Giverny, about forty miles northwest of Paris.

For the rest of his life, he devoted himself to painting and tending his gardens, which included the Japanese footbridge in this picture.

His style became more expressive as he piled thick pigments layer upon layer in ever more intense colors that often didn’t correspond to reality (possibly because his eyesight was failing).

Giving up any desire to record minute details, he wove tangled skeins of paint with bold strokes, seeming more concerned with nature’s mysteries than with mere appearance.

Joseph Wright of Derby | A view of Vesuvius from Posillipo, Naples

From: Art Gallery of South Australia

Joseph Wright (1734-1797) began his career as one of Britain foremost portrait painters, but, following a visit to Italy between 1773 and 1775, he turned his gaze to landscape painting, becoming recognised for his deep understanding and exploration of light.

Wright visited the Bay of Naples in 1774, finding its awe-inspiring view of Mount Vesuvius particularly moving.

Édouard Manet | Young Lady in 1866, 1866

Manet’s model, Victorine Meurent, had recently posed as the brazen nudes in Olympia and Luncheon on the Grass (both Musée d’Orsay, Paris).

Here, appearing relatively demure, she flaunts an intimate silk dressing gown.

Critics eyed the painting as a rejoinder to Courbet’s Woman with a Parrot and as indicative of Manet’s "current vice" of failing to "value a head more than a slipper".

Carolus-Duran | Portrait of Édouard Manet, 1880

Carolus-Duran (1837-1917), a successful society portraitist, painted this informal view of his friend Édouard Manet (1832-1883) at a villa outside of Paris.

Manet was known for his impeccable grooming, but Carolus-Duran portrays him in a moment of ease, flushed by the effects of a warm afternoon, wearing a straw boater pushed back on his forehead.

Carolus Duran | Portrait of Édouard Manet, 1880 | Paris, Musée d'Orsay

Working quickly, he captures Manet’s appearance and mood with broad, summary strokes, painting him “à la Manet”-employing his friend’s loose brushwork rather than his own tighter style. | Source: © RISD Museum of Art

Claude Monet | The Artist's Garden at Giverny, 1900

The Artist's Garden at Giverny (French: Le Jardin de l'artiste à Giverny) is an oil on canvas painting by Claude Monet done in 1900, now in the Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

It is one of many works by the artist of his garden at Giverny over the last thirty years of his life.

The painting shows rows of irises in various shades of purple and pink set diagonally across the picture plane.

John Gulich | A Violin Concerto, 1898

John Percival Gülich (also Gulich) (1864-1898) was a British illustrator, engraver and artist.

Gülich was born in Wimbledon in 1864, the son of Hermann Gülich, a London merchant of German origin, and Eleanor. He was educated at Charterhouse School.

He lived in Bremen for five years, working in his father's office.

He became Art Editor of the illustrated newspapers The Pictorial World and The Graphic, and also contributed to Harper's Magazine.

John Gulich | A Violin Concerto, 1898 | Tate

Meteyard / Tennyson | The Lady of Shalott

Sidney Harold Meteyard RBSA (1868-1947) was an English art teacher, painter and stained-glass designer.

A member of the Birmingham Group, he worked in a late Pre-Raphaelite style heavily influenced by Edward Burne-Jones and the Arts and Crafts Movement.

His best-known painting - I am half sick of shadows, said the Lady of Shalott (1913), based on the poem The Lady of Shalott (1832) by Lord Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892) - is in the collection of Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.

In this piece The Lady of Shalott is at her tapestry with a wedding couple reflected in her mirror.

Sidney Harold Meteyard (1868-1947) | I am Half-Sick of Shadows - Said the Lady of Shalott, 1913

Richard Westall | The Reconciliation of Helen and Paris after his Defeat by Menelaus, 1805

Richard Westall RA (1765-1836) was an English painter and illustrator of portraits, historical and literary events, best known for his portraits of Byron.

He was also Queen Victoria's drawing master.

Westall was the more successful of two half-brothers (both sons of a Benjamin Westall, from Norwich) who both became painters.

His younger half-brother was William Westall (1781-1850), a much-travelled landscape painter.

Richard Westall | The Reconciliation of Helen and Paris after his Defeat by Menelaus, 1805

Alberto Moravia: "L'invidia è come una palla di gomma che più la spingi sotto e più ti torna a galla.."

• "A Roma è avvenuto il contrario di quello che avviene nelle altre capitali: la città si è ingrandita e arricchita; ma è rimasta legata a un’idea del vivere elementare e grossolana. Cinica, scettica, priva di ideali, materiale, ottusa, Roma presenta insomma lo spettacolo sconcertante di una capitale il cui fine principale anzi unico sia quello di vivere alla giornata o meglio di sopravvivere".

Renato Guttuso | Portrait of Alberto Moravia, 1982

Charles Courtney Curran

Charles Courtney Curran was an American painter, best known for his canvases depicting women in various settings.

Curran was born in Hartford, Kentucky, where his father taught school.

A few months later after the beginning of the Civil War, the family left there and returned to Ohio, eventually settling in Sandusky on the shores of Lake Erie where the elder Curran served as superintendent of schools.

Chul-Hwan Park, 1964 | Still Life painter

Chul-Hwan Park is a Korean Still Life painter of flowers, with a Master of Painting from Hongik University Graduate School of Fine Arts in Seoul, Korea.

Park’s still-life paintings are of such vivid realism that one nearly expects his flower blooms to exude a fragrance like their real-life counterparts.

One recalls the legendary Korean painter Solgeo, whose painting of a pine tree on a temple wall was so real that it lured birds to nest. Like Solgeo, Park is a true artist of realism.

John Lennon: “Love is the flower you’ve got to let grow”

• "Love is the flower you’ve got to let grow".

John Lennon

• "Love is like wildflowers; it’s often found in the most unlikely places".

• "L’amore è come i fiori di campo; si trova spesso nei posti più improbabili".

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Marc Chagall | Parigi dalla mia finestra, 1913

C'è l'Opéra, il Louvre, L'Arc de Triomphe, Notre-Dame, la Tour Eiffel, il Panthéon, Place de la Concorde, Saint-GermainDes-Pres. Esplodono in arancioni, verdi, blu, viola, rossi.

Ci volteggiano sopra amanti, animali, madri, fiori, angeli.

Chagall non smise mai di ricordarla, di trasfigurarla nei suoi sogni, di farla orizzonte su cui si mimetizzava tutto il suo immaginario intimo e poetico.

C'è la città con i suoi luoghi simbolici, e c'è il pittore con la sua storia, i suoi miti. Parigi evoca e accoglie al tempo stesso, si fa materia onirica nello sguardo di Chagall.

Max Agostini | Impressionist painter

Max Michel Agostini (1914-1997), of Corsican origin from his grandparents, was born in 1914.

He discovered his talent for Impressionistic painting while studying at the Paris Beaux-Arts School.

Drafted into the French army for five years during the Second World War, Max-Agostini was a prisoner of war for three years.

During the postwar years, he was already recognized as an excellent portrait and landscape artist in Châteauroux, where he lived for several years.

Co Breman | Dutch Palmzondag, Laren, 1914

Ahazueros Jacobus Breman, known as Co (1865-1938) was a Dutch painter.

He specialized in landscapes, farms and interior scenes, with figures, and was one of the first Pointillist painters in the Netherlands.

His father, Willem Fredrik Breman (1829-1875), owned a carpentry and blacksmithing shop. He had five siblings, including Evert Breman, a well-known architect.

Vincent van Gogh | Garden with Courting Couples, 1887

Van Gogh called this sunny park scene 'the painting of the garden with lovers'.

Couples in love are strolling under the young chestnut trees and sitting along the winding paths.

Essential Facts:

Title: Garden with Courting Couples: Square Saint-Pierre

Date: Paris, May 1887

Artist: Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890)

Medium: oil on canvas

Dimensions: 75.0 cm x 113.0 cm

Current location: Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)

Anthonore Christensen | Flowers painter

Anthonie Eleonore Christensen (1849-1926), generally known as Anthonore Christensen, née Tscherning was a Danish flower painter.

She exhibited from 1867 at Charlottenborg, winning the medal of the year in 1893.

As a painting teacher, her students included Queen Louise and Queen Olga of Greece.

Hafsa Idrees, 1992 | Finger painter

Hafsa Idrees is an Pakistani painter and writer born in Islamabad.

- "Art has always been close to my heart and even though I have not received a formal education in any particular genre, drawing/painting is an important part of my life. Since school, I have been experimenting with and enjoying different styles, media and techniques".

"I started with Arabic calligraphy at the age of 10 but I soon realized that I enjoyed painting and drawing too. My subjects then were things and people from my immediate surroundings but with time I started to explore different kinds of paints, pencils, materials and subjects".

A Love Letter from Balzac to Countess Ewelina Hańska

My beloved angel,

"I am nearly mad about you, as much as one can be mad: I cannot bring together two ideas that you do not interpose yourself between them.

I can no longer think of nothing but you. In spite of myself, my imagination carries me to you. I grasp you, I kiss you, I caress you, a thousand of the most amorous caresses take possession of me. As for my heart, there you will always be - very much so. I have a delicious sense of you there.

But my God, what is to become of me, if you have deprived me of my reason?

This is a monomania which, this morning, terrifies me. I rise up every moment say to myself, ‘Come, I am going there!’ Then I sit down again, moved by the sense of my obligations.

Ferdinand Georg Waldmuller | Portrait of Madame Ewelina Hańska, 1835

Ellen Montalba | Dreams

Ellen Emeline Montalba (1842-1912) was a British artist. She was born in Bath, England, one of four daughters of the Swedish-born artist Anthony Rubens Montalba and Emeline.

She and her three sisters all attained high repute as artists.

The 1871 British census shows Anthony Montalba living at 19 Arundel Gardens, Notting Hill, in London, with four daughters, all artists.

The Montalba sisters were regular contributors to the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition during the 1870s.

Wisława Szymborska | Domande poste a me stessa / The questions you ask yourself

Qual è il contenuto del sorriso

e d’una stretta di mano?

Nel dare il benvenuto

non sei mai lontana

come a volte è lontano

l’uomo dall’uomo

quando dà un giudizio ostile

a prima vista?

Wisława Szymborska (1923-2012)

Léo Caillard, the photographer who dresses classical statues

Leo Caillard is a contemporary artist internationally recognized for the quality of his marble sculptures as well as for his digital creations at the cutting edge of new technologies.

Leo Caillard opens a dialogue between eras through the use of these two mediums and the unique aesthetic of his art, mixing figures from ancient statuary and abstract digital forms.

Born in Paris in 1985, he graduated from the prestigious Goblins school in 2006 then from fine arts in 2008.

He then left for New York for 2 years, the opportunity there to meet the contemporary art scene and start these first digital creations.