Lilium Auratum (Golden-rayed Lily), John Frederick Lewis, oil on canvas, 54 x 34 in. ( 137 x 35 cm), in the collection of the City of Birmingham Museum. I can’t find an image on their site, so the link is to a large image on the Peaceful Artworks prints and reproductions site.

Like many of the 19th century painters classified as Orientalists, John Frededrick Lewis was known for paintings of attractive young women in colorful and exotic costume. Throw in some lucious flowers and you have some key aspects of what made Orientalism so appealing to jaded European, and particularly British, art buyers.

Everything about the subject, including the faces of the women, is idealized and renderded with exquisite attention to detail. I find it interesting that the majority of the composition, with the exception of the brightly lit background, is in shadow.

That, along with the sidewards glance in our direction of the second woman (who I take to be a servant to the other) give the scene a feeling of intimacy. The artist has placed us in the shadows with the women, and one of them is engaging directly with us.

The shadow contrast is even more exaggerated in the reproduction on the ArtUK site. Not having seen the original, and always wary of the accuracy of art images on the internet, I suspect the value relationships of the original may be somewhere in between.

Flowers in a Crystal Vase, Edouard Manet, oil on canvas, 13 x 19 in. (33 x 25 cm). In the collection of the National Gallery of Art, DC.

Manet is best known for his figurative work, of course, but I particularly enjoy his still life paintings. I’m not always in tune with various styles of florals, but I think Manet’s loaded, brushy paint marks give his subject a vibrant freshness.