Category: Eye Candy for Today

Young Woman with a Water Pitcher, Johannes Vermeer In the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; use the zoom or download icons under the image on the museum’s website. Of the 35 or 36 Vermeer paintings acknowledged to exist, I’ve had the good fortune in my time to have seen perhaps 20 in person.…

The King Governs by Himself, Charles Le Brun Zoomable version on Google Art Project; high-resolution (57mb) downloadable version on Wikimedia Commons; view from the other direction on The Athenaeum; original is in the Palace of Versailles. This is the centerpiece of a remarkable series of large scale works by 17th century French painter Charles Le…

The Arab Jeweler, Charles Sprague Pearce In the Metropolitan Museum of Art; use zoom or download icons under the image. This piece by the 19th century Boston painter of an Egyptian craftsman and his tools — a subject common among “Orientalist” painters — looks refined on the surface; but on closer inspection in the nicely…

Flute Concert with Frederick the Great in Sanssouci, Adolph Menzel Link is to zoomable version on Google Art Project; downloadable file on Wikimedia Commons; original is in the Alte Nationalgalerie, National Museums in Berlin. The ostensible subject, Frederick the Great — about whom Menzel painted a series of works — is almost lost among the…

Madonna and Child with Saints, Girolamo dai Libri Tempera and oil on canvas; 16th century, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Use the zoom or download icons under the image. To my mind, this could be titled “Madonna and Child with Laurel Tree“, so striking is the tree’s presence, painstakingly detailed and dominating the composition.…