cma-greek-roman-art
Horse Figurine with Looped Legs, mid 6th century BC, Cleveland Museum of Art: Greek and Roman Art
Size: Overall: 3.6 x 5.8 cm (1 7/16 x 2 5/16 in.)
Medium: bronze
Fragment of a Choir Book with Historiated Initial (H): Birth of the Virgin, 13th Century, Cleveland Museum of Art: Medieval Art
Size: Sheet: 13 x 12 cm (5 1/8 x 4 ¾ in.)
Medium: ink, tempera, and gold on parchment
Bowl, Early 13th Century, Cleveland Museum of Art: Islamic Art
Size: Diameter: 22.5 cm (8 7/8 in.); Overall: 11.5 cm (4 ½ in.)
Medium: fritware with underglaze-painted design
aic-european
Self-Portrait, Vincent van Gogh, 1887, Art Institute of Chicago: European Painting and Sculpture
In 1886 Vincent van Gogh left his native Holland and settled in Paris, where his beloved brother Theo was a dealer in paintings. Van Gogh created at least twenty-four self-portraits during his two-year stay in the energetic French capital. This early example is modest in size and was painted on prepared artist’s board rather than canvas. Its densely dabbed brushwork, which became a hallmark of Van Gogh’s style, reflects the artist’s response to Georges Seurat’s revolutionary pointillist technique in A Sunday on La Grande Jatte—1884. But what was for Seurat a method based on the cool objectivity of science became in Van Gogh’s hands an intense emotional language. The surface of the painting dances with particles of color—intense greens, blues, reds, and oranges. Dominating this dazzling array of staccato dots and dashes are the artist’s deep green eyes and the intensity of their gaze. “I prefer painting people’s eyes to cathedrals,” Van Gogh once wrote to Theo. “However solemn and imposing the latter may be—a human soul, be it that of a poor streetwalker, is more interesting to me.” From Paris, Van Gogh traveled to the southern town of Arles for fifteen months. At the time of his death, in 1890, he had actively pursued his art for only five years. Joseph Winterbotham Collection
Size: 41 × 32.5 cm (16 1/8 × 12 13/16 in.)
Medium: Oil on artist’s board, mounted on cradled panel
Tile, 1610–25, Metropolitan Museum of Art: European Sculpture and Decorative Arts
Gift of W. R. Valentiner, 1908
Size: Overall (tile): 5 ¼ × 5 ¼ in. (13.3 × 13.3 cm); Overall (whole panel): 26 ¾ × 21 ¼ in. (67.9 × 54 cm)
Medium: Tin-glazed earthenware
si-american-art-museum
A Lady in Black, Henry Wolf, 1910, Smithsonian: American Art Museum
Medium: wood engraving on paper
http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=28018
Portrait of Dora Wheeler, William Merritt Chase , 1882-1883, Cleveland Museum of Art: American Painting and Sculpture
Dora Wheeler became Chase’s first student when he returned from overseas study in Munich and set up a teaching studio in New York. At the time, few American artists accepted women as private pupils. After her course of study, Wheeler joined her mother in launching a successful decorating firm, one of the first businesses in the country to be operated entirely by women. For the firm, she designed luxurious textiles, and the embroidered silk tapestry that fills the background in her portrait references her occupational interest. Chase’s portrait was awarded a gold medal at an international survey of contemporary art in Munich in 1883, and later that year was also shown in Paris. At some later point, the painting was acquired by the sitter, who subsequently donated it to the museum.
Size: Framed: 180.6 x 188.6 x 11 cm (71 1/8 x 74 ¼ x 4 5/16 in.); Unframed: 159.8 x 166.4 cm (62 15/16 x 65 ½ in.)
Medium: oil on canvas
slam-european
Portrait of a Musician, attributed to Girolamo Mazzola Bedoli, Italian, c.1505–1569/70, c.1540, Saint Louis Art Museum: European Art to 1800
Luxury Inlaid Container, c. 1250-1350, Cleveland Museum of Art: Islamic Art
Silver and gold inlay transforms this brass box into a luxury container. Courtiers, birds, and fretwork form the decoration while inscriptions extend good wishes. On the body it reads: “Brilliance, and nobility, and patience, and modesty, and glory, and long life, and piety, and patience.”
Size: Diameter: 11.4 cm (4 ½ in.); Overall: 12 cm (4 ¾ in.); Diameter of box: 10.1 cm (4 in.); Box: 9.7 cm (3 13/16 in.)
Medium: sheet brass, inlaid with silver and gold
radishshev-art-museum