Auguste de Châtillon | Léopoldine in the Book of Hours, 1835

"Léopoldine in the Book of Hours" can be dated to 1835, the inscription on canvas possibly relating either to the beginning or the end of the execution or to its commission for Léopoldine's (daughter of Victor Hugo) eleventh birthday.

It was in this year that the young child began to go to catechism, which the book of hours seems to symbolize.

The portrait is of great iconographic interest for the indication it can give about the apartment on the Place Royale: the armchair, the 15th century Book of Hours, open on a miniature of the Dormition of the Virgin of which it is likely that it belonged to Victor Hugo.

Auguste de Châtillon | Léopoldine in the Book of Hours, 1835 | Maison de Victor Hugo

George P. A. Healy | Euphemia White Van Rensselaer, 1842

Euphemia Van Rensselaer (1816-1888) was the daughter of Stephen Van Rensselaer and the sister of Alexander Van Rensselaer.

She was born in Rensselaerswyck, near Albany, New York, and inherited a portion of her father's vast estate in 1839.

This picture was painted in 1842, the year before her marriage to John Church Cruger, a prominent lawyer with whom she settled on Cruger's Island near Barrytown, New York.

George Peter Alexander Healy | Euphemia White Van Rensselaer, 1842 (detail) | Metropolitan Museum of Art

Wilfrid de Glehn RA (1870-1951)

Wilfrid Gabriel de Glehn RA è stato un pittore impressionista Britannico, eletto alla Royal Academy nel 1932.

Il padre di De Glehn era Alexander de Glenn di Sydenham, Londra, lui stesso figlio di Robert von Glehn, un barone baltico con proprietà vicino a Tallinn in Estonia, che era diventato un suddito britannico naturalizzato in seguito al suo matrimonio con una donna scozzese.

Jakob Kulle | Genre painter

Swedish artist Jakob Kulle Ohlsson (1838-1898) produced genre scenes depicting everyday moments from rural life.

They’re quiet and respectful, and generally lacking sentimental embellishments.

Grandmothers teach granddaughters the family craft, couples exchange loving glances, and the house cat polishes off the last of the chicken.

Pablo Neruda | Walking around / Andando in giro..

Succede che mi stanco di essere uomo

Succede che entro nelle sartorie e nei cinema smorto,

impenetrabile, come un cigno di feltro

che naviga in un’acqua di origine e di cenere.

L’odore dei parrucchieri mi fa piangere e stridere

Voglio solo un riposo di ciottoli o di lana

Non voglio più vedere stabilimenti e giardini

Mercanzie, occhiali e ascensori.

René Magritte

Maxime Maufra (1861-1918)

Maxime Maufra è stato un pittore, incisore e litografo Francese.

Fece parte della Scuola di Pont-Aven e dei pittori del Dipartimento della Marina.

Nacque a Nantes, da una famiglia benestante e fu avviato agli studi classici e alla carriera di uomo d'affari.

Alfred Elmore | Victorian painter

Alfred Elmore RA (1815-1881) was a British history and genre painter.

Alfred Elmore was born in Clonakilty, Ireland, the son of John Richard Elmore, a surgeon who retired from the British Army to Clonakilty.

His family moved to London, where Elmore studied at the Royal Academy of Arts.

His early works were in the troubadour style of Richard Parkes Bonington, but he soon graduated to religious work, notably The Martyrdom of Thomas à Becket, commissioned by Daniel O'Connell for Westland Row Church in Dublin.