Johannes Vermeer | View of Houses in Delft, 1658

View of Houses in Delft / Het Straatje, known as 'The Little Street' is an unusual painting in Vermeer’s oeuvre, and remarkable for its time as a portrait of ordinary houses.

The composition is as exciting as it is balanced.

The old walls with their bricks, whitewash, and cracks are almost tangible.

The location is Vlamingstraat 40-42 in Delft.

Vermeer’s aunt Ariaentgen Claes lived in the house at the right, with her children, from around 1645 until her death in 1670. | Source: © Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

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'.

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

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).

Rembrandt's palette

Technical investigation of Rembrandt's (1606-1669) paintings in the possession of the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister and in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister (Kassel) was conducted by Hermann Kühn in 1977.

The pigment analyses of some thirty paintings have shown that Rembrandt's palette consisted of the following pigments: lead white, various ochres, Vandyke brown, bone black, charcoal black, lamp black, vermilion, madder lake, azurite, ultramarine, yellow lake and lead-tin-yellow.

Synthetic orpiment was shown in the shadows of the sleeve of the jewish groom.

Peter Paul Rubens | Christ Risen, 1616

"Christ Risen", "The Easter Tomb" or "The Triumph of Christ over Death and Sin" is a painting by Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), executed c. 1616.

It entered the collection of Ferdinando de' Medici, Grand Prince of Tuscany between 1713 and 1723 and is now in the Palatine Gallery of the Palazzo Pitti in Florence.

Rembrandt | The Artist's Mother, 1629 | Royal Collection

"An old Woman called 'The Artist's Mother'" by Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669) is a study in old age by a young, aspiring painter who rapidly gained a reputation for this kind of work before moving to Amsterdam to develop his career as a portraitist and history painter.

Executed towards the end of his time in Leiden (c.1629), this painting already reveals Rembrandt’s mastery of precise detail in the treatment of the folds of skin, the sunken eyes, the taut mouth and the prominent nose.

Rembrandt | The Artist's Mother, 1629 | Royal Collection

Jusepe de Ribera | Saint Joseph, 1635

Born in Spain, Jusepe de Ribera spent his entire active career in Italy.

He arrived in Spanish-ruled Naples between 1607 and 1614.

Caravaggio’s presence had a profound impact on Neapolitan painting.

Ribera then travelled to Parma, Rome, before settling in Naples.

Jusepe de Ribera | Saint Joseph, 1635 | Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

Domenico Fetti | David with the Head of Goliath, 1620

Domenico Fetti (1589-1623) was probably born in Rome, where he trained with the Florentine Ludovico Cigoli in the early years of the 17th century and studied the dramatic chiaroscuro of Caravaggio and his followers.

Through Cigoli, Fetti was introduced to Cardinal Ferdinando Gonzaga, who returned to Mantua in 1613 to become Duke Ferdinando II, inviting Fetti to come with him and serve as Court Painter.

In Mantua, Fetti saw the works of Peter Paul Rubens, whose transparent red and blue fleshtones he adopted, as well as the art of Giulio Romano and that of the great Venetian painters of the 16th century, Titian and Tintoretto, whose rich colors and rapid, painterly brushtrokes greatly informed his mature style.

Domenico Fetti | David with the head of Goliath, 1620 (detail) | Hampton Court Palace

Princess Louise Hollandine | Baroque painter

Princess Louise Hollandine of the Palatinate (18 April 1622 - 11 February 1709) was a painter and abbess.

She was a daughter of Frederick V of the Palatinate, the "Winter King" of Bohemia, and Scottish princess Elizabeth Stuart, daughter of King James VI and I.

She is also known for her romantic involvement with the Marquess of Montrose.

Early life

Born in April 1622, Louise Hollandine was born at the Hague Palace in Holland, as her father was living in exile at the court of his uncle, Maurice, Prince of Orange.

It is Ginevra Cantofoli the painter of the masterpiece known as the "Portrait of Beatrice Cenci"!

A long historical tradition has identified Beatrice Cenci in this portrait.

Formerly attributed to Guido Reni, it is now attributed to Italian Baroque painter Ginevra Cantofoli (Bologna 1618-1672).

The girl turns to us with an appealing and innocent gaze that reminds us of her tragic fate.

After years of oppression and abduction in a castle, Beatrice supported by her brothers and stepmother planned the murder of her father, Francesco Cenci, who was a dissolute and deprived man.

Ginevra Cantofoli | Woman in a Turban, 1650 (detail) | Gallerie Nazionali Barberini Corsini, Roma

Louise Moillon | Baroque painter

Louise Moillon (1610-1696) was a French still life painter in the Baroque era.

It is recorded that she became known as one of the best still life painters of her time, as her work was purchased by King Charles I of England, as well as French nobility.

Louise Moillon is also known for her Flemish style that is present in her artwork.

Moillon created about 40 artworks during her lifetime which are held in museums and private collections.

Artemisia Gentileschi | Mary Magdalene in Ecstasy, 1620-25

Until its appearance on the art market in Paris in 2014, this picture was only known from a black-and-white photograph.

It has been hailed as one of the most significant rediscoveries of a work by Artemisia in recent years.

It depicts Mary Magdalene, a follower of Christ, who withdrew to a life of solitary penitence and prayer following his death.

Here the Magdalene, alone in a cave and bathed in light, is in the throes of an ecstatic vision.

Artemisia paints her in a way that suggests a real, physical presence.

Artemisia Gentileschi | Mary Magdalene in Ecstasy, 1620-25 (detail) | The National Gallery, London

Luisa Roldàn | Baroque sculptor

Luisa Roldàn | The Entombment of Christ, 1700-1701 | Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Entombment is one of the two "jewel-like sculptures" Luisa Roldán gave to the newly installed King Philip V of Spain in 1701, petitioning him to appoint her sculptor to the royal court.

In the previous decade she had pioneered a genre of sculpture - powerfully conceived and exquisitely modelled and painted figural groups, made on a deliberately intimate scale - of which this is perhaps the finest.

Luisa Roldàn | The Entombment of Christ, 1700-1701 | Metropolitan Museum of Art

Sir Peter Lely | Study for a Portrait of a Woman, 1670

From: Metropolitan Museum of Art

This sketch provides a good example of Sir Peter Lely’s (Dutch-born English Baroque Era Painter, 1618-1680) working method, as one of the most successful portraitists in England in the second half of the seventeenth century.

Following the example of Van Dyck, Lely painted only the sitter’s head in his or her presence, sometimes laying in an outline for the pose and costume.

Sir Joshua Reynolds PRA | Presidente fondatore della Royal Academy of Art

Reynolds, Sir Joshua - Pittore inglese (Plyche mpton, Devonshire, 1723 - Londra 1792). Tra i più celebri ritrattisti inglesi del sec. 18°, la sua grande fortuna fu dovuta oltre che alle sue notevoli capacità innovative nell'ambito di questo genere anche alle sue qualità sociali che lo resero caro non solo all'aristocrazia, ma anche a pensatori e scrittori dell'epoca.

Nella formazione del suo stile, fortemente personale, si combinarono influssi diversi: elementi dei Veneziani, dei Bolognesi, del tardo Rembrandt e di Rubens si aggiunsero a quelli che egli aveva ricevuto dal Hudson e dal Gandy.

La sua pittura rivela un graduale sviluppo dal semplice ritratto obiettivo, secondo la tradizione di Lely, Kneller e Hudson, verso uno stile più ambizioso ed immaginativo, nel quale i modelli vengono rappresentati come personaggi mitologici o fantastici concepiti drammaticamente.

389th anniversary of Johannes Vermeer's birth

Today’s Doodle celebrates Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer, a seminal Baroque artist who is widely regarded among the greatest Dutch painters of all time.

Johannes Vermeer (October 1632 - December 1675) was a Dutch painter who specialized in domestic interior scenes of middle-class life. He was a moderately successful provincial genre painter in his lifetime but evidently was not wealthy, leaving his wife and children in debt at his death, perhaps because he produced relatively few paintings.

Vermeer worked slowly and with great care, and frequently used very expensive pigments. He is particularly renowned for his masterly treatment and use of light in his work.
Vermeer painted mostly domestic interior scenes.

"Almost all his paintings are apparently set in two smallish rooms in his house in Delft; they show the same furniture and decorations in various arrangements and they often portray the same people, mostly women".

Artemisia Gentileschi | Artistic importance

The research paper "Gentileschi, padre e figlia" (1916) by Roberto Longhi (Italian academic, art historian and curator, 1890-1970. The main subjects of his studies were the painters Caravaggio and Piero della Francesca) described Artemisia (1593-1652) as "the only woman in Italy who ever knew about painting, coloring, drawing, and other fundamentals".

Longhi also wrote of Judith Slaying Holofernes:

"There are about fifty-seven works by Artemisia Gentileschi and 94% (forty-nine works) feature women as protagonists or equal to men".

These include her works of Jael and Sisera, Judith and her Maidservant, and Esther. These characters intentionally lacked the stereotypical "feminine" traits - sensitivity, timidness, and weakness - and were courageous, rebellious, and powerful personalities (such subjects are now grouped under the name the Power of Women).

A nineteenth-century critic commented on Artemisia's Magdalene stating, "no one would have imagined that it was the work of a woman. The brush work was bold and certain, and there was no sign of timidness".

Jacob Jordaens (1593-1678)

Jacob Jordaens è stato un pittore Fiammingo, fra i maggiori del XVII secolo.

Fu allievo, con Pieter Paul Rubens, del pittore manierista Adam Van Noort, grazie al quale fu ammesso alla gilda dei pittori di Anversa.

Suo padre era un commerciante di tessuti o di sete. La famiglia Jordaens apparteneva alla borghesia più agiata: la loro casa si situava nell'Hoogstraat (la via alta), una delle vie più conosciute per il commercio dei panni ad Anversa.

Il 15 maggio 1616 sposò la figlia minore del suo maestro Adam van Noort, Catharina, di quattro anni più anziana. È un matrimonio cattolico da cui nasceranno tre figli: Elisabeth (1617), Jacques (1625) ed Anne Catherine (1629).

Francisco De Zurbarán | Vita e pittura

Francisco Zurbarán (1598-1664), fu l'artista barocco che meglio seppe rappresentare la religiosità controriformista della Chiesa spagnola del 17° secolo.

Profondamente religioso, Zurbarán rimase personalità singolare ed appartata.

Nella sua vasta produzione di soggetti sacri, le figure assurgono a simboli di intensa spiritualità (dipinti per il convento di S. Pablo el Real di Siviglia, commissionatigli nel 1626, ora sparsi in chiese e musei della città; serie delle sante, 1639-45, in vari musei europei).

Nella fase finale della sua attività si dedicò alla natura morta, che rese in modi estremamente moderni.