Named after the red lead pigment used to outline them, these illustrate luxury manuscript books. Examples from around 400 CE through accounts of the Crusades, to Aesop’s fables in 1530.
Bourdichon
Polyphemus watching the naked Acis, King David watching Bathsheba, two old elders watching Susanna bathing, each of them voyeurs.
Paintings of this story from Hans Memling to the first of Rembrandt’s show Bathsheba bathing in the foreground while the king looks on as voyeur.
The story of Bathsheba and King David involves adultery and murder, and ultimately the triumph of power not virtue. Early paintings up to Artemisia Gentileschi.
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