Lady Reading in an Interior - Marguerite Gérard
1795-1800
Mrs. John Hale - Sir Joshua Reynolds
1762-64
Zeuxis Selecting Models for His Picture of Helen of Troy - Angelica Kauffmann
“Angelica my plaudits gain,
Her art so sweetly canvas stains
Her dames so gracious, give me such delight
But were she married to such gentle males
As figured in her painted tales,
I fear she’d find a stupid Wedding Night”
- Peter Pindar, “Odes to the Royal Academicians”
At this point of the museum, I was getting tired of taking photos and not just enjoying the paintings, hence the accidental cutting off the top on the first photo.
The Fortune Teller - John Opie
“Famous as a portraitist before turning to history painting, Opie was born in a tin-mining area of Cornwall. He was taught and promoted by a doctor and amateur artist John Wolcott who encouraged him to send a painting to Britain’s Society of Artists in London around 1780 and moved there by the end of that year. There, he was hailed as ‘the Cornish Wonder’ and was recognized by Sir Joshua Reynolds. In 1805 Opie became professor of painting at the Royal Academy in London. He is buried at St Paul’s near Joshua Reynolds, one of the Academy’s founders.
Around 1800, Opie turned to ‘fancy pictures’ as they were called in Britain, referring to the imagination, or ‘fancy.’ Here, a young woman engages at the viewer and points to a single card, a standard conceit associated with gypsy fortune-tellers. Her peacock feather is a revealing detail: until well into the 19th century only gypsies would wear peacock feathers, considered a symbol of ill luck. According to custom, gypsies would not enter a home to tell a person’s fortune.” - Seen at MoFA
A Fountain in the Park (detail) - Hubert Robert
I will post the whole painting later.
(seen at MoFA)
