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 other spectators, and overshadowed by the the striking presence of the soloist. [Correction: turns out I jumped to conclusions based on my lack of background knowledge. The flute player is Frederick the Great. See the comment on this post by Levantine.]

The real star of the painting, though, is the resplendent candlelight cascading down from the crystal chandelier — reflected in the ornate mirror and sweeping through the richly textured composition — where it is echoed by the glow of the individual candles amid the ensemble.

A tour-de-force of interior light.

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.

Along with that, the most notable features are the angelic faces of the Madonna and the other women, and the monumental geometric solidity of the Durer-inspired landscape.

The male “saints” look to me like carefully portrayed portraits of patrons or clergy, most interesting for the “painting within a painting” of their decorated robes. The angel trio — in the foreground but smaller than the other figures — seem almost like musical stage accompaniment, as if in an orchestra pit in front of an opera.

The peacock is rendered with Audubon-like accuracy and the distant mountains have the surreal feeling common in early landscapes in which the atmospheric distance is indicated with a distinct shift in color, but without the softening of detail most often present in reality and in later paintings.

Particularly impressive to me is the beatific face of the woman to our right, lovingly rendered and reminiscent of Botticelli’s mythic figures.