Tant les jardins que l'architecture nous plaisent

Antiquités égyptiennes

Art de l’Orient islamique

Art de l’Extrême-Orient

Arts du livre

Peintures et sculptures européennes

Bust of Saint Catherine (?) / Bust of Saint Joseph - Rogier van der Weyden

Along with the painting The Magdalen Reading (The National Gallery, London), both of these fragments formed part of an altarpiece that was dismantled for unknown reasons. The whole, which can be seen in a drawing entitled The Virgin and the Child and Saints (Nationalmuseum, Stockholm), is believed to have been one of the main works produced by Rogier van der Weyden in the earliest phase of his career as an independent artist.

It has been suggested that the female figure is Saint Catherine of Alexandria since the sumptuousness of her clothes chimes with traditional representations of the saint. Moreover, the work reflects the master’s delightful colourist inclinations. Another fragment depicts the figure of Saint Joseph, imbued with an use of colour rarely found in representations of the time.

In the mid-ground, the Gothic architecture helps to create the sense of perspective. The landscape in the background, which is bathed in light and precisely depicted in the two panels, develops the depth of the space and creates the sense of a real environment in accordance with the innovative artistic concepts of the early Flemish masters.

The scheme of the composition is therefore consistent with the symmetry characteristic of Rogier van der Weyden and it seems reasonable to suppose that the original altarpiece featured six figures that were alternately shown standing and either kneeling or seated around the Virgin and Child.

Sacra Conversazione or Rest on the Flight into Egypt - Cima da Conegliano

This painting was probably executed around the same time as the larger Madonna dell'Arancio (Galleria dell’Accademia, Venice), originally conceived for the altar of St. Claire in Murano in 1496-1498. There are obvious similarities in the group formed by the Virgin and Child in both works, which is more evident in Virgin and Child with St. John the Baptist and St. Lucy (Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin), in which the saints, although only depicted from the waist up, are in identical position to that we see here.

The subject of this painting is the rest on the Flight into Egypt – an allusion indicated in the background by the grazing donkey with the saddle – although the two saints at the far sides are both reminiscent of a Sacra Conversazione. Besides the angels and St. Joseph, we can see St. John the Baptist on the left of the central group, while on the opposite side is St. Lucy of Syracuse holding a lamp, one of her characteristic attributes and a reference to the divine light and wisdom.

At the edge of the composition, which is full of symmetry and balance, stands a tree, the Christian symbol of life. The landscape, which, in an emotional reaction to the light that suggests Giovanni Bellini, is both real and imaginary, also incorporates a Virgilian evocation of the ancient world, the source of inspiration for idyllic scenery.

Le Tapis Vert - Hubert Robert

This painting, pair of Le Bosquet des Bains d’Apollon, may have been a study for a larger canvas by Hubert Robert, currently at the Musée National du Château de Versailles. However, it is actually thought more likely to be a replica from a slightly later date. The Versailles paintings, which were directly commissioned by Louis XVI, were exhibited at the 1777 Salon, where they caused great sensation. This success could explain why the artist produced a new version of the paintings.

Both canvases depict the cutting and replanting of trees at the park of Versailles, as ordered by the king after reaching the throne and as carried out during the winters of 1774-1775 and 1775-1776. The Versailles and Lisbon paintings differ in some details. However, in both paintings, along with the picturesque elements characteristic of Robert's work, one can observe the classical group of Castor and Pollux, on the left, and the statue of Milo of Croton by Pierre Puget, on the right. The scene is set at the entrance to the Tapis Vert, with the Bassin d’Apollon at the front and the Grand Canal disappearing into the distance. The bosquet La Colonnade, conceived at the end of the 17th century by architect Jules Hardouin-Mansart, is partially visible.

The Reading - Henri Fantin-Latour

The theme of reading was the subject of several well-known works by the artist and can therefore be said to have played an important role in his work. The painting constitutes an excellent example of Henri Fantin-Latour’s skill as an intimiste who remained ever faithful to a sober ideal of representation characterised by a sense of realism. It also introduces the observer into his favourite themes, a poetic and dreamlike domestic environment with vaguely melancholic undertones.

On the left of the picture it is possible to identify Victoria Dubourg, the artist’s future wife, while on the right sits the enigmatic figure of Charlotte Dubourg, who stares intently at the observer and/or the painter. It should be noted that the latter figure appears with some regularity in his work, raising the possibility that a ‘silent complicity’ existed between the model and the artist.

Another significant aspect of the composition is the sense of interior isolation that separates the two sisters. The contrast between the illuminated surface and the darker area of the painting, where the figures are positioned, highlights the ambiguity that can be sensed between proximity and distance, imbuing the scene with the suggestion of a restrained ‘mental’ unease that is equally present in other portraits by the painter.