Still life with Brass Urn, by Soren Emil Carlsen, oil on canvas, roughly 30 x 34 in. (76 x 86 cm). The image was sourced from a Christie’s auction in 2010, so I assume the original is now in a private collection.

Another mind-bogglingly beautiful still life from the brilliant Danish painter Emil Carlsen, who was active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

High end auction sites, like Christie’s and Sotheby’s, are some of the few places where I normally trust the fidelity of images of artwork.

But, in this case, my instincts got the better of me and I tried lightening it slightly in an image editor, and the wealth of additional detail and visual appeal that is revealed makes me think the original may look more like the color adjusted photos in the images above (bottom three).

The reason I look to auction sites for as true as possible images of art, is they often deal with patrons who will purchase directly over the internet, based on the image, so the image had better be right. I suppose, however, a client would be more pleased with a painting that arrived looking brighter and clearer then the photograph, rather then the other way around.

A simple but irresistibly compelling composition, sensual texture, almost mystically unified values, and… that bowl!

Study of a Woman’s Head, by Jean-Baptiste Greuze, oil on wood, roughly 18 x 16 in. (47 x 41 cm), in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York. The link is to the page for this painting on the Met’s website.

As I find is often the case with images posted by museums of works from their collections, their primary image is way too dark. This seems to be deliberate practice among many museums, for reasons I can’t fathom.

If you look below the image, you’ll see thumbnails of alternate views. One of them is a photograph of the painting in its frame that is much closer to the appearance of the painting in person. Unfortunately, there isn’t a large version of that photograph. I’ve taken the liberty in the images above of color adjusting the large image to try to bring it closer to the appearance of the actual painting.

Though he also painted historic subjects and genre scenes, 18th century painter Jean-Baptiste Greuze was known primarily for his portraits. This painting is classed as a study, though it’s finished to a high degree.

Click on the image on the Met’s page to see it larger in a zooming viewer, or click the download arrow under the image to see it full size.

Even in the dark version, you can see his highly sophisticated use of value, edges and color. Look at how the reds, pinks, cream colors and greens blend within the geometry of the face.

Notice, as I did to my particular delight, the wonderfully controlled but nicely visible brush marks. Look at the direction they take down the shape of the nose, the sweep across the vertical plane of the cheek, and the beautifully realized roundness of the neck and breast.