Jean-Louis Hamon | Aurora, 1864

Left a sum of 500 francs, Jean-Louis Hamon (1821-1874) was able to pursue his artistic tastes with ease. He gained advice from Ingres and entered L'Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1842.

He designed at Sevres from 1848-1853 and exhibited at the Salon from 1847.

He gained several medals including a silver in 1867 at the Exposition Universelle.

Ivan Apollonov, 1983

Ivan Apollonov / Иван Аполлонов is an Russian painter. He graduated from The Russian Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg.

Apollonov lives and works in Saint Petersburg.

Filippino Lippi (1457-1504) | Life and paintings

Formatosi alla scuola del padre Filippo e poi di S. Botticelli, Filippino Lippi svolse una intensa attività pittorica in diverse città, tra cui Firenze e Roma; tra le sue opere più significative si ricordano l'Apparizione della Vergine a s. Bernardo e gli affreschi della cappella Strozzi in S. Maria Novella.

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.

Franz von Lenbach | Life and paintings

Franz Seraph Lenbach (1836-1904), after 1882, Ritter von Lenbach was a German painter, known primarily for his portraits of prominent personalities from the nobility, the arts, and industry.

Because of his standing in society, he was often referred to as the "Malerfürst" (Prince of Painters).

Marc Chagall | Paintings and Quotes

• Bisogna lavorare sul quadro pensando che qualcosa della propria anima entrerà a farne parte e gli darà sostanza.
• Mine alone is the country of my soul.
• When I am finishing a picture, I hold some God-made object up to it - a rock, a flower, the branch of a tree or my hand - as a final test. If the painting stands up beside a thing man cannot make, the painting is authentic. If there's a clash between the two, it's bad art.
• Color is vibration like music; everything is vibration.
• The freer the soul, the more abstract painting becomes.
• I am out to introduce a psychic shock into my painting, one that is always motivated by pictorial reasoning: that is to say, a fourth dimension.

Charles Meynier | Apollo and the Muses, 1798

Charles Meynier | Clio, Muse of History | Cleveland Museum of Art

In 1797 François-Bernard Boyer-Fonfrède, an industrial textile manufacturer, commissioned Charles Meynier (Paris, 1768-1832) to paint nine canvases featuring Apollo and the Muses for a large room in his home in Toulouse.

Meynier exhibited the painting based on this drawing at the Salon of 1800 but ultimately only completed five canvases, as his patron ran out of money.

The paintings were installed in the hall of Wallenried Castle, Switzerland by General Castella de Berlens around 1824, where they remained until 1983.

The group was acquired by the Cleveland Museum of Art in 2003. | © The Metropolitan Museum of Art