From dice shooters in a rough tavern, through Bastien-Lepage’s Little Chimneysweep, to poverty in Catania, and destitution in Paris.
painting
His finest narrative paintings from Susanna and the Elders in 1890, through Salome and Homeric Laughter, to Ariadne on Naxos and the Trojan Horse in 1924.
Completes this unique virtual exhibition with paintings on the Calydonian Boar Hunt, Philemon and Baucis, Birth of the Milky Way, Adonis, and more.
A unique virtual exhibition of some of Rubens’ finest depictions of myths drawn from Ovid’s Metamorphoses.
From his first self-portrait when he was 29, through his wild years in Munich and Berlin, his stroke in 1911, and the First World War, to his last shortly before his death 100 years ago.
Originally extracted from the madder plant, and turned into a pigment by laking, its colour could fade within months. Later purified to alizarin it proved no better, and is now used as a measure of non-lightfastness.
The red that lasts hundreds of years without fading, but it’s a highly toxic salt of mercury. Used in European paintings from the Romans to the late 19th century.
From the foundation of Troy, the start of the war with the Judgement of Paris, the death of Achilles, the sack of Troy, and Aeneas journey to found the precursor to Rome, and on to the age of Augustus.
Maids toiling at food preparation and washing clothes in the sculleries and utility rooms in the basement. Among them is Vermeer’s Milkmaid, and some of Degas’ working women.
Paintings of police from lictors in ancient Rome, through ‘Peelers’ in London, to those regulating prostitution and trying to control striking workers.
The Eclectic Light Company 