Scuola Grande di San Marco and the Ponte Cavallo on the Rio dei Mendicanti, Venice, Rubens Santoro; oil on canvas, roughly 33 x 26″ (85 x 66 cm). Link is to Christie’s past auction.

I don’t know the location of the original. I sourced the image from a 2016 Christie’s Auction, so I assume it’s in a private collection.

Rubens Santoro was a late 19th/early 20th century painter known for his views of Venice. Scuola Grande di San Marco is a historic building that was less a specifically a school, and more a center for religious and social activities.

I love the contrast between the highly rendered facade of the building and the painterly, almost impressionist, handling of the water. santoro achieves awonderful feeling of light and atmosphere, grounded in a firm command of geometry and perspective.

If the two arches to the flanks of the main doorway look a little out of perspective with the rest of the building, it’s because they are actually trompe l’œil images rendered in different types of marble, along with what appear to be bas-relief sculptural elements.

Day Dreams, George Clausen, oil on canvas; roughly 27 x 60 inches (70 x 152 cm). Link is to the image file page on Wikimedia Commons. Their source is a 2007 Sotheby’s auction, so I assume the original is currenty in a private collection.

In this idyllic rural scene by the British painter George Clausen, we can see his admiration for the French painter Jules Bastien-Lepage who was roughly his contemporary. Both painters idealized the lives of farm workers; and both painted with a particularly subtle sensitivity to value relationships.