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CMA: European Painting and Sculpture

@cmaeuropeanpaint.bsky.social

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Sharing public domain works from the European Painting and Sculpture department of Cleveland Museum of Art. Automated #artbot thanks to @andreitr.bsky.social and @botfrens.bsky.social

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CMA: European Painting and Sculpture @cmaeuropeanpaint.bsky.social · 2m

Portrait of a Man https://clevelandart.org/art/1940.539

Small portraits often appeared in a scholar’s study. This young man wears a badge on his hat. Though the painting’s condition makes the badge difficult to make out, it features a complex, extremely learned allegory about virtue, speaking to the young man’s intellect.

CMA: European Painting and Sculpture @cmaeuropeanpaint.bsky.social · 2h

Virgin and Child in a Landscape https://clevelandart.org/art/1972.47

Among the first northern European artists to study in Rome, Gossaert returned north to serve in various German and Flemish courts, incorporating Italian Renaissance ideas. Gossaert also painted the frame, including the Latin inscription: "Mother, may your contemplation be our reconciliation." The patron is likely Mencía de Mendoza, a Spanish noblewoman, one of the most important art collectors and intellectuals of the early 1500s.

CMA: European Painting and Sculpture @cmaeuropeanpaint.bsky.social · 4h

Portrait of a Man Holding a Watch https://clevelandart.org/art/2017.105

Held in the hand or displayed in a private domestic space, miniature portraits were designed for intimate viewing. The sitter holds a watch, often a symbol of mortality and the passage of time. Like his colleague Gerrit Dou, Slingelandt was one of the Leiden fijnschilders (fine painters), a group of artists whose paintings were internationally recognized for their extraordinary detail and precise technique.

CMA: European Painting and Sculpture @cmaeuropeanpaint.bsky.social · 8h

The Immaculate Conception https://clevelandart.org/art/1963.294

The Christian doctrine of the Immaculate Conception maintains that the Virgin Mary was conceived free from sin, ready to be the pure vessel for Christ’s birth. Depicting such an abstract idea required specific imagery. The moon beneath the Virgin’s feet, for example, comes from the New Testament vision of Saint John the Evangelist (Revelation 12:1) of “a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet,” while the serpent upon which she treads symbolizes Christ’s triumph over original sin. With his characteristically delicate modeling, elongated proportions, and soft coloring, Ignaz Günther created an archetypal image of innocence on the cusp of womanhood.

CMA: European Painting and Sculpture @cmaeuropeanpaint.bsky.social · 23h

Figure from a Crèche: Angel https://clevelandart.org/art/1972.368.18

The practice of creating scenes of the Nativity for the home dates from the early 1700s in Italy, where people began to set up doll-like figures of about a foot or less in height. The custom was particularly popular in Naples around 1800, where crèche scenes (crèche means cradle, or crib) included many figures, whose heads and hands of painted terracotta, stuffed cloth bodies, and clothing adapted from contemporary local costumes gave them an amazingly realistic character.

Representations of the birth of Jesus can be traced to the first few centuries of Christianity. Both living creatures and sculptural depictions of them were used from early times. By the late middle ages it was customary to create life-size figures of wood or stone, naturalistically painted, to represent the characters who participated in the events of Jesus's early life. These sculptures were then arranged in scenes illustrating one or both of the most important of these events, the Adoration of the Shepherds and the Adoration of the Magi-the three kings from the East who came to pay homage to the Christ child. Used in churches, these large figures were especially popular in Italy, Central Europe, Spain, and Portugal.

This Object in Focus presentation was organized by Henry Hawley, Curator of Renaissance and Later Decorative Arts and Sculpture.

CMA: European Painting and Sculpture @cmaeuropeanpaint.bsky.social · 1d

Medal of Anne of Austria (reverse) https://clevelandart.org/art/1987.195.b

Medal of Anne of Austria (reverse)

CMA: European Painting and Sculpture @cmaeuropeanpaint.bsky.social · 1d

Medal of Isotta degli Atti da Rimini (reverse) https://clevelandart.org/art/1986.66.b

Medal of Isotta degli Atti da Rimini (reverse)

CMA: European Painting and Sculpture @cmaeuropeanpaint.bsky.social · 1d

Abraham Welcoming the Three Angels https://clevelandart.org/art/1952.235.4

This series of paintings predominantly tells the Old Testament story of Abraham and Isaac, and each of the canvases treats the interaction of humans and angels. In three works, angels appear to Abraham and, in one particularly dramatic canvas, an angel intercepts Abraham before he sacrifices his own son. However, the narrative of Tobias and the Angel comes from an entirely different book of the Bible. The blind Tobit sends his son Tobias off to collect a sum of money in the distant town of Media, with the angel Raphael accompanying him in disguise as a human. This particular work depicts Raphael overseeing Tobias catching a fish, which would later be used to cure his father's blindness. Though the depiction the stories seems incongruous, the Sacrifice of Isaac and Tobias and the Angels were popular in Italian art between the 1400s and 1600s and both treat fathers and sons as well as obedience inspired by faith.

CMA: European Painting and Sculpture @cmaeuropeanpaint.bsky.social · 1d

Venus https://clevelandart.org/art/1950.578

Venus

CMA: European Painting and Sculpture @cmaeuropeanpaint.bsky.social · 1d

Pair or Putti Statuettes: Putto as Summer and Putto as Spring https://clevelandart.org/art/1962.208

Pair or Putti Statuettes: Putto as Summer and Putto as Spring

CMA: European Painting and Sculpture @cmaeuropeanpaint.bsky.social · 2d

Virgin and Child with John the Baptist and Angels https://clevelandart.org/art/1916.792

Virgin and Child with John the Baptist and Angels

CMA: European Painting and Sculpture @cmaeuropeanpaint.bsky.social · 2d

Portrait of a Woman https://clevelandart.org/art/1944.93

In his 1642 address to the painter’s guild in Leiden, the artist Philips Angel said that the greatest painters could properly distinguish among a range of fabrics. In order to create the dazzling costume worn by this graceful woman, Terborch would have set up a mannequin with satin drapery so that he could closely observe and record every gradation of reflected light. Terborch built up the shimmering fabric with a network of fine flicks and sweeps of the brush, occasionally adding and wiping away tiny bits of paint to make the dress shine.

CMA: European Painting and Sculpture @cmaeuropeanpaint.bsky.social · 2d

Portrait of Thomas Hobbes https://clevelandart.org/art/1949.548

Portrait of Thomas Hobbes

CMA: European Painting and Sculpture @cmaeuropeanpaint.bsky.social · 2d

Portrait of a Woman https://clevelandart.org/art/1948.183

Jean-Marc Nattier was a favorite portraitist of King Louis XV of France. He held the lucrative position as the court painter for Queen Mary Lesczynski, the daughter of the exiled king of Poland. The portrait was long thought to be of Madame Henriette de France, one of the daughters of Louis XV and Queen Mary Lesczynski, but this identification is no longer accepted and the sitter remains unknown. There has been considerable confusion over the identity of many of Nattier's sitters, as they tend to conform to an idealized concept of female beauty.

CMA: European Painting and Sculpture @cmaeuropeanpaint.bsky.social · 2d

The Holy Family on the Steps https://clevelandart.org/art/1981.18

This deceptively simple composition represents a complex meditation on the Holy Family’s role in the redemption of humanity. At the center, Mary presents the Christ Child to the world. At the left, Saint Elizabeth leans forward to foretell his eventual death, while her son, Saint John the Baptist, offers Jesus an apple, signifying humanity’s fall from grace in the Garden of Eden. At the right, Saint Joseph holds a compass, a sign of his occupation as a carpenter and also symbolic of God the Father. Poussin developed his composition meticulously and deliberately, using clear primary colors, simple forms, and a geometric organization to express the central importance of the Holy Family in Christian belief.

CMA: European Painting and Sculpture @cmaeuropeanpaint.bsky.social · 3d

Rest on the Flight into Egypt https://clevelandart.org/art/1973.32

Formerly ascribed to the French painter Simon Vouet (1590-1649), Rest on the Flight into Egypt has only recently been attributed to Poerson, a collaborator and follower of Vouet. Intended to be a small devotional picture, this painting on oak panel depicts a quiet scene of the Holy Family resting; the Virgin Mary sits while an angel brings the plump young Christ Child fruit, and St. Joseph leads their donkey away to graze. The delicate pinks and blues and the transparent treatment of light and shadow create a gentle domestic atmosphere, characteristic of Vouet's Italian-influenced work.

CMA: European Painting and Sculpture @cmaeuropeanpaint.bsky.social · 3d

Portrait of a Woman in Blue https://clevelandart.org/art/1941.554

Portrait of a Woman in Blue

CMA: European Painting and Sculpture @cmaeuropeanpaint.bsky.social · 3d

Model for a Portrait Medal of Wolfgang Gamensfelder at Age 19 https://clevelandart.org/art/1976.16

Model for a Portrait Medal of Wolfgang Gamensfelder at Age 19

CMA: European Painting and Sculpture @cmaeuropeanpaint.bsky.social · 3d

Doorpull https://clevelandart.org/art/1994.114.1

Doorpull

CMA: European Painting and Sculpture @cmaeuropeanpaint.bsky.social · 3d

Medal of Anne of Austria (obverse) https://clevelandart.org/art/1987.195.a

Jean Warin revolutionized the production of medals by introducing the raised edge, allowing greater ease in striking (mechanically pressing) medals. He composed numerous medals of Queen Anne of Austria (1601-1666), the regent queen of France before her son Louis XIV was old enough to assume the throne.

CMA: European Painting and Sculpture @cmaeuropeanpaint.bsky.social · 4d

Decorative Panels, Double-leaf Doors, Overdoor Paintings https://clevelandart.org/art/1942.2

Decorative Panels, Double-leaf Doors, Overdoor Paintings

CMA: European Painting and Sculpture @cmaeuropeanpaint.bsky.social · 4d

Tabernacle Relief with Flanking Angels https://clevelandart.org/art/1975.105

This relief once framed a tabernacle—a receptacle above and behind an altar for the safekeeping of the Eucharist. The inscription over the doorway, LOCHVS SANCTVS (Holy Place), and below, LAVS DEO (Praise God), confirm the relief’s intended purpose. Originally, a door at center, perhaps in gilt bronze, would have secured the tabernacle. The pose, costumes, and modeling of the flanking angels all suggest the hand of a gifted artist probably working under the influence of Tullio Lombardo, a brilliant Venetian marble sculptor.

CMA: European Painting and Sculpture @cmaeuropeanpaint.bsky.social · 4d

The Trinity https://clevelandart.org/art/1956.337

Commissioned by Duke Moritz of Saxony, this medal depicts the Trinity in the form of the Throne of Grace. God the Father holds the cross on which Christ has been crucified, expressing God’s acceptance of Christ’s sacrifice, with the Holy Spirit between them in the form of a dove.

CMA: European Painting and Sculpture @cmaeuropeanpaint.bsky.social · 4d

Mortar https://clevelandart.org/art/1951.444

Three reliefs curiously combine faith, hope, and vanity. They were made after works by Peter Flötner (more refined plaquettes by the artist are in a wall case behind you), then incorporated into the vessel. The plants and small reptiles were cast from life, an example of the strong interest in natural history in Renaissance Nuremberg. This tradition relates closely to the French ceramics nearby by Palissy, which also incorporate natural specimens.

CMA: European Painting and Sculpture @cmaeuropeanpaint.bsky.social · 4d

Overdoor Painting https://clevelandart.org/art/1942.2.14

Overdoor Painting