30 Works, Today, February 27th. is artist Joaquín Sorolla's day, his story, illustrated with footnotes #058

Joaquín Sorolla  (1863–1923)

La playa de Valencia/ The beach at Valencia, c. 1908

Oil on canvas

50 × 65.5 cm (19.6 × 25.7 in)

Private collection

Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida (27 February 1863 – 10 August 1923) was a Spanish painter. Sorolla excelled in the painting of portraits, landscapes and monumental works of social and historical themes. His most typical works are characterized by a dexterous representation of the people and landscape under the bright sunlight of Spain and sunlit water.

Joaquín Sorolla  (1863–1923)

El baño del caballo/ The Horse's Bath, c. 1909

Oil on canvas

Height: 205 cm (80.7 in); Width: 250 cm (98.4 in)

Sorolla Museum 

Sorolla was the eldest child born to a tradesman, also named Joaquin Sorolla, and his wife, Concepción Bastida. His sister, Concha, was born a year later. In August 1865, both children were orphaned when their parents died, possibly from cholera. They were thereafter cared for by their maternal aunt and uncle, a locksmith.

He received his initial art education at the age of 9 in his native town, and then under a succession of teachers. At the age of eighteen he traveled to Madrid, vigorously studying master paintings in the Museo del Prado. After completing his military service, Sorolla, at age twenty-two, obtained a grant which enabled a four-year term to study painting in Rome, Italy. A long sojourn to Paris in 1885 provided his first exposure to modern painting. 

Joaquín Sorolla

Running along the Beach, Valencia, c. 1908

Museum of Fine Arts, Oviedo, Asturias, Spain

Sorolla’s other great love was for his home city of Valencia. Despite living in Madrid, he returned to Valencia every year, drawn to the intense light and broad horizon of the coast. He grew a reputation for beach scenes, which he painted endlessly, and had an uncanny ability for capturing the effects of blazing Mediterranean sunlight. Many of these pictures, often large canvases, were executed 'en plein air', as evidenced by the grains of sand embedded in their densely painted surfaces. More on this painting

In 1888, Sorolla returned to Valencia to marry Clotilde García del Castillo They moved to Madrid, and for the next decade Sorolla's efforts as an artist were focussed mainly on the production of large canvases of orientalist, mythological, historical, and social subjects, for display in salons and international exhibitions in Madrid, Paris, Venice, Munich, Berlin, and Chicago.

Joaquín Sorolla  (1863–1923)

Otra Margarita!/ Another Marguerite!, c. 1892

Oil on canvas

Height: 51.2 in (130.1 cm); Width: 78.7 in (200 cm)

Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum

Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida based this composition on an incident he witnessed on a third-class railway carriage between Madrid and Valencia, where two civil guards were accompanying a female prisoner who was being brought to justice. The name Margarita might be read as a reference to a slang term for prostitutes used in Valencia at the time. Even more significantly, the name suggests a connection to Goethe’s tragic play Faust, in which Margaret (also called Gretchen) commits infanticide after being seduced by the protagonist Faust. Sorolla used meticulous detail here to augment the misery of the scene, painting from models in an actual railway car rather than in a studio. The spartan space heightens the prisoner’s isolation, and intense sunlight highlights her face even while she slumps over in shame or defeat. Almost theatrical in its character, this painting was a milestone in Sorolla’s career. It made his reputation in the United States, earning a Medal of Honor at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. More on this painting

His first striking success was achieved with Another Marguerite (1892) (See above), which was awarded a gold medal at the National Exhibition in Madrid, then first prize at the Chicago International Exhibition, where it was acquired and subsequently donated to the Washington University Museum in St. Louis, Missouri. 

Joaquín Sorolla  (1863–1923)

La vuelta de la pesca/ The Return from Fishing, circa 1894

Oil on canvas

Height: 265 cm (104.3 in); Width: 403.5 cm (13.2 ft)

Musée d'Orsay

The Return from Fishing is a precisely detailed account of the complex, strenous, dangerous and above all primitive working conditions of the local fishermen of Valencia, who still used teams of oxen to haul their boats up the beach. While you’re relishing the warm sunlight filling the huge sail, consider how difficult this task is, and how dangerous it must have been to work with those powerful animals, and several tons of wooden boat hull, in wind and waves.

Sorolla finds not only himself, but also the wild and constant light that he has always longed for and pursued since his beginnings in Assisi. This painting is one of Sorolla's first international successes. Being acquired by the French government, the work is awarded the Second Class Medal in the Paris Salon of 1895. With this work, Sorolla expresses his artistic ideal. More on this painting

He soon rose to general fame and became the acknowledged head of the modern Spanish school of painting. His picture The Return from Fishing (1894) (See above) was much admired at the Paris Salon and was acquired by the state for the Musée du Luxembourg. It indicated the direction of his mature output.

Joaquín Sorolla  (1863–1923)

Portrait of Dr Simarro at the Microscope, c. 1897

Oil on canvas Edit this at Wikidata

Height: 80 cm (31.4 in) Width: 100 cm (39.3 in) Edit this at Wikidata

Private collection

The history of this picture, says Sorolla: "A Research, if it can be called history, is so natural and simple that it can be told in a few words. I had been working on the portrait of Dr. Simarro in his laboratory. I often visited the home of my fellow countryman and I attended, as a curious spectator, the scientific investigations to which the doctor was dedicated, with the enthusiastic and assiduous cooperation of his colleagues and disciples. I know it is not usual for a painter to visit the home of the person he is portraying, but my studio is a reserved place, which I only use if it is absolutely unavoidable. Whenever possible, I paint things where they are, and people in their environment, in their own atmosphere, the only way so to paint them so they will turn out as they really are, naturally, intimately, and not as if they were on a visit and in an artificial setting..." More on this painting

Joaquín Sorolla  (1863–1923)

Research, c. 1897

Oil on canvas

Height: 122 cm (48 in); Width: 151 cm (59.4 in)

Sorolla Museum

This painting shows Dr Luis Simarro Lacabra, the renowned psychiatrist and member of the Institución Libre de Enseñanza, at work in his laboratory with some of his assistants and fellow scientists. The scene was captured by Sorolla on one of his visits to the house of Doctor Simarro, a great art lover and close lifelong friend of Sorolla. Impressed by the intent observation of the doctor’s expectant disciples and colleagues, the idea for the painting occurred to Sorolla and he began to paint it straight away, going back each evening to the laboratory. The scene is lit by a single light source within the painting which throws the figures into relief and at the same time creates a rich chiaroscuro of warm shadows where Sorolla can delight in his passion for light in all its variations. More on this painting

Sorolla painted these two masterpieces in 1897 linking art and science: Portrait of Dr. Simarro at the microscope and A Research (See above). These paintings were presented at the National Exhibition of Fine Arts held in Madrid in that year and Sorolla won the Prize of Honor. Here, he presents his friend Simarro as a man of science who transmits his wisdom. These paintings may be among the most outstanding world paintings of this genre.

Joaquín Sorolla  (1863–1923)

Sad Inheritance, c. 1899

Oil on canvas

Height: 210 cm (82.6 in); Width: 285 cm (112.2 in)

Bancaja, Valencia

Here, social drama, conceived in the open air at the Cabanal’s seaside of Valencia, naturally integrates light and landscape. Among the group of blind, crazy, crippled, and leprous children, he shows us, with striking realism, the naked body of the child struck polio in the center of the picture, who, with great difficulty, is trying to bathe at the beach with the help of a monk of the Orden Hospitalaria de San Juan de Dios. More on this painting

An even greater turning point in Sorolla's career was marked by the painting and exhibition of Sad Inheritance in 1899 (See above), an extremely large canvas, highly finished for public consideration. The subject was a depiction of crippled children bathing at the sea in Valencia, under the supervision of a monk. They are the victims of hereditary syphilis the title implies, perhaps. Campos has suggested that the polio epidemic that struck the land of Valencia some years earlier is present, possibly for the first time in the history of painting, through the image of two affected children. The painting earned Sorolla his greatest official recognition, the Grand Prix and a medal of honor at the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1900, and the medal of honor at the National Exhibition in Madrid in 1901.

A series of preparatory oil sketches for Sad Inheritance were painted with the greatest luminosity and bravura, and foretold an increasing interest in shimmering light and of a medium deftly handled. Sorolla thought well enough of these sketches that he presented two of them as gifts to American artists; one to John Singer Sargent, the other to William Merritt Chase. After this painting Sorolla never returned to a theme of such overt social consciousness.

The exhibit at the Paris Universal Exposition of 1900 won him a medal of honour and his nomination as Knight of the Legion of Honour. Within the next few years Sorolla was honoured as a member of the Fine Art Academies of Paris, Lisbon, and Valencia, and as a Favourite Son of Valencia.

A special exhibition of his works—figure subjects, landscapes and portraits—at the Galeries Georges Petit in Paris in 1906 eclipsed all his earlier successes and led to his appointment as Officer of the Legion of Honour. The show included nearly 500 works, early paintings as well as recent sun-drenched beach scenes, landscapes, and portraits, a productivity which amazed critics and was a financial triumph. Though subsequent large-scale exhibitions in Germany and London were greeted with more restraint, while in England in 1908 Sorolla met Archer Milton Huntington, who made him a member of The Hispanic Society of America in New York City, and invited him to exhibit there in 1909. The exhibition comprised 356 paintings, 195 of which sold. Sorolla spent five months in America and painted more than twenty portraits.

Joaquín Sorolla  (1863–1923)

My Family, c. 1901

Oil on canvas

185 x 159 cm

Valencia City Council (Spain)

In Sorolla’s painting we see his image, palette in hand, in a mirror in the background.  The main figures in the painting were those of his family.  His wife Clotilde stands to the left in a long red dress along with her children.   Elena, the youngest, sits on the chair was five years old at the time. Their nine-year old son Joaquín sits on a stool sketching a picture of his sister whilst their elder daughter, Maria, who would have been eleven when her father completed the work, holds the board which her brother is using to support his sketch. More on this painting

Although formal portraiture was not Sorolla's genre of preference, because it tended to restrict his creative appetites and could reflect his lack of interest in his subjects, the acceptance of portrait commissions proved profitable, and the portrayal of his family was irresistible. Sometimes the influence of Velázquez was uppermost, as in My Family (1901) (See above), a reference to Las Meninas which grouped his wife and children in the foregroundr. 

Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida

Mrs. Ira Nelson Morris and Her Children, c. 1911

Oil on canvas

221.2 cm (87.09 in.) x 169.3 cm (66.65 in.)

Hispanic Society of America, New York City, United States

Joaquín Sorolla  (1863–1923)

Portrait of Mr. Taft, President of the United States, c. 1909

Oil on canvas

150 × 80 cm (59 × 31.4 in)

Taft Museum of Art

At other times the desire to compete with his friend John Singer Sargent was evident, as in Portrait of Mrs. Ira Nelson Morris and her children (1911) (See above). A series of portraits produced in the United States in 1909, commissioned through the Hispanic Society of America, was capped by the Portrait of Mr. Taft, President of the United States (See above). This portrait, which was painted at the White House, is on permanent display at the Taft Museum of Art in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Joaquín Sorolla  (1863–1923)

Maria at La Granja, c. 1907

Oil on canvas

67 1/8 in. x 33 1/2 in. (170.5 cm x 85.09 cm)

San Diego Museum

Here Maria stands as a beautiful young woman one can sense the strong bond Sorolla shared with his daughter. Maria at La Granja gives one the feeling that the image portrays Maria as her father always saw her.

Joaquín Sorolla  (1863–1923)

King Alfonso XIII in a Hussar's Uniform, c. 1907

Oil on canvas

Height: 208 cm (81.8 in); Width: 108.5 cm (42.7 in)

Royal Palace of Madrid

The posthumous son of Alfonso XII, Alfonso XIII (1886-1941) was proclaimed king at his birth, although his mother, Queen Maria Christina, ruled as regent until he reached the age of 16. Alfonso himself ruled from 1902 until 1931 when, refusing to abdicate when elections returned an overwhelming vote for a republic, he left the country, dying in exile in Rome in 1941. More on this painting

Joaquín Sorolla  (1863–1923)

Louis Comfort Tiffany, c. 1911

Oil on canvas

150.5 x 225.4 cm

Hispanic Society of America, New York

Sorolla travelled to Tiffany home repeatedly from 4 to 15 May 1911, painting the portrait in one of the estate’s gardens, with Tiffany at his easel, and his border terrier, Funny, at his side. The bravura execution of the picture is completely Impressionist, with the composition balancing multiple shades of yellow and blue against bands of whites and gray-greens. Priscilla Muller has pointed out Sorolla’s insistence that “whites are never solely white,” and indeed, every white in the painting is mixed with color, with the important exception of the cuff on the hand holding the paint brush, plus the foresail of a boat on Cold Spring Harbor in the background.

The studied elegance of Tiffany’s attire and centered formality of the presentation of the sitter contrasts with the casual effect of the “artist at work” conceit and relaxed pose, as though Tiffany were pausing in mid-brushstroke to reply to a comment from the viewer. 

Tiffany paid Sorolla the astonishing sum of $8,000 for the picture—approximately $200,000 in 2018 dollars. Sorolla, however, bought three bronze-and-glass chandeliers for his new house in Madrid; thus, the picture ended up being part of an artistic exchange of a more tangible kind. More on this painting

Joaquín Sorolla  (1863–1923)

My Wife and Daughters in the Garden, c. 1910

Portrait of Clotilde del Castillo and their daughters

Oil on canvas

I have no further description, at this time

The appearance of sunlight could be counted on to rouse his interest, and it was outdoors where he found his ideal portrait settings. Thus, not only did his daughter pose standing in a sun-dappled landscape for María at La Granja (1907) (See above), but so did Spanish royalty, for the Portrait of King Alfonso XIII in a Hussar's Uniform (1907) (See above). For Portrait of Mr. Louis Comfort Tiffany (1911) (See above). The conceit reaches its high point in My Wife and Daughters in the Garden (1910) (See above), in which the idea of traditional portraiture gives way to the sheer fluid delight of a painting constructed with thick passages of color, Sorolla's love of family and sunlight merged.

Joaquín Sorolla  (1863–1923)

Castilla, the feast of Bread, c. 1913

Vision of Spain (formerly, The Provinces of Spain)

Oil on canvas

Height: 351 cm (11.5 ft); Width: 1,352 cm (14.7 yd)

Hispanic Society of America

Joaquin Sorolla  (1863–1923)

Sevilla. The Nazarenes/ Seville, Holy Week.  Penitents, c. 1914

Vision of Spain

Oil on canvas

Height: 351 cm (11.5 ft); Width: 300.5 cm (118.3 in)

Hispanic Society of America

Joaquín Sorolla  (1863–1923)

Aragón, c. 1914

Vision of Spain (formerly, The Provinces of Spain)

Oil on canvas

Height: 485 cm (15.9 ft); Width: 349 cm (11.4 ft)

Hispanic Society of America

Joaquin Sorolla  (1863–1923)

Navarra, c. 1914

Vision of Spain

Oil on canvas

Height: 349 cm (11.4 ft); Width: 230 cm (90.5 in)

Hispanic Society of America

Joaquin Sorolla  (1863–1923)

Guipúzcoa/ Bowling, c. 1914

Vision of Spain

Oil on canvas

Height: 350 cm (11.4 ft); Width: 231.5 cm (91.1 in)

Hispanic Society of America

Joaquín Sorolla  (1863–1923)

Andalucía, El Encierro, c. 1914

Vision of Spain (formerly, The Provinces of Spain)

Oil and canvas

Height: 351 cm (11.5 ft) Width: 752 cm (24.6 ft)

Hispanic Society of America 

Joaquin Sorolla  (1863–1923)

Sevilla, The Dance, c. 1915

Vision of Spain Edit this at Wikidata

Oil on canvas

Height: 351 cm (11.5 ft); Width: 302.5 cm (119 in)

Hispanic Society of America 

Joaquín Sorolla  (1863–1923)

Sevilla. Los toreros/ The Bullfighters, c. 1915

Visión de España

Oil on canvas

Height: 351 cm (11.5 ft); Width: 231 cm (90.9 in)

Hispanic Society of America

Joaquin Sorolla  (1863–1923)

Galicia. The pilgrimage, c. 1915

Vision of Spain

Oil on canvas

Height: 351 cm (11.5 ft); Width: 300 cm (118.1 in)

Hispanic Society of America 

Joaquin Sorolla  (1863–1923)

Catalonia. The fish, c. 1915

Vision of Spain Edit this at Wikidata

Oil on canvas

Height: 351 cm (11.5 ft); Width: 485 cm (15.9 ft)

Hispanic Society of America 

Joaquin Sorolla  (1863–1923)

Valencia. Las grupas, c. 1916

Vision of Spain

Oil on canvas

Height: 351 cm (11.5 ft); Width: 301 cm (118.5 in)

Hispanic Society of America 

Joaquín Sorolla  (1863–1923)

Extremadura, the Market, c. 1917

Vision of Spain (formerly, The Provinces of Spain)

Oil on canvas

Height: 351 cm (11.5 ft); Width: 302 cm (118.8 in)

Hispanic Society of America

Joaquín Sorolla  (1863–1923)

Elche. El palmeral/ The palm grove, c. 1919

Visión de España 

Oil on canvas

Height: 351 cm (11.5 ft); Width: 321 cm (10.5 ft)

Hispanic Society of America 

Joaquín Sorolla  (1863–1923)

Ayamonte, c. 1919

Vision of Spain 

Oil on canvas Edit this at Wikidata

Height: 349 cm (11.4 ft); Width: 485 cm (15.9 ft) Edit this at Wikidata

Hispanic Society of America 

Early in 1911, Sorolla visited the United States for a second time, and exhibited 152 new paintings at the Saint Louis Art Museum and 161 at the Art Institute of Chicago a few weeks later. Later that year Sorolla met Archie Huntington in Paris and signed a contract to paint a series of oils on life in Spain (See above). These 14 murals, installed to this day in the Hispanic Society of America building in Manhattan, range from 12 to 14 feet in height, and total 227 feet in length. The major commission of his career, it would dominate the later years of Sorolla's life.

Huntington had envisioned the work depicting a history of Spain, but the painter preferred the less specific Vision of Spain, eventually opting for a representation of the regions of the Iberian Peninsula, and calling it The Provinces of Spain. Despite the immensity of the canvases, Sorolla painted all but one en plein air, and travelled to the specific locales to paint them: Navarre, Aragon, Catalonia, Valencia, Elche, Seville, Andalusia, Extremadura, Galicia, Guipuzcoa, Castile, Leon, and Ayamonte, at each site painting models posed in local costume. Each mural celebrated the landscape and culture of its region, panoramas composed of throngs of laborers and locals. By 1917 he was, by his own admission, exhausted. He completed the final panel by July 1919.

Sorolla suffered a stroke in 1920, while painting a portrait in his garden in Madrid. Paralysed for over three years, he died on 10 August 1923. He is buried in the Cementeri de Valencia, Spain.

The Sorolla Room, housing the Provinces of Spain at the Hispanic Society of America, opened to the public in 1926. The room closed for remodeling in 2008, and the murals toured museums in Spain for the first time. The Sorolla Room reopened in 2010, with the murals on permanent display. More on Joaquín Sorolla

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16 Works, Today, February 26th. is artist Elihu Vedder's day, his story, illustrated with footnotes #057

Elihu Vedder (American, 1836–1923)

The Questioner of the Sphinx, c. 1863

Oil on canvas

92.07 x 107.31 cm (36 1/4 x 42 1/4 in.)

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Vedder, then in his twenties, had not yet visited Egypt when he painted this mysterious work. Depictions of the Great Sphinx at Giza (or Gizeh) had appeared in a number of travel books by the mid-nineteenth century, when imagery of the Near East became increasingly popular; Vedder seems to have used such an illustration as a source. However, the subject of an Arab wayfarer questioning the mysterious monument came from Vedder’s fertile imagination, although it does recall the ancient Greek myth of the sphinx that protected the road to Thebes by challenging passing travelers with riddles. Vedder’s pilgrim, in his ragged robes, appears to have made a long and difficult journey through an inhospitable wilderness in the hope of hearing some great truth from the implacable statue. His success is uncertain, for the skull of another questioner lies in the foreground, a mute witness to the occasion.

Vedder wrote that, in this painting, he sought to portray the hopelessness of man before the laws of nature; to the modern viewer, it also resonates with the uncertainty that accompanied the Civil War. Vedder continued to be haunted by this subject and he produced a number of other images of the sphinx over the course of his long career. More on this painting

Elihu Vedder (February 26, 1836 – January 29, 1923) was an American symbolist painter, book illustrator, and poet, born in New York City. He is best known for his fifty-five illustrations for Edward FitzGerald's translation of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.

Elihu Vedder  (1836–1923)

The Sorrowing Soul Between Doubt and Faith, circa 1887

Oil on canvas

Height: 16 in (40.6 cm); Width: 21 in (53.3 cm)

Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University

This painting, in its original frame, presents Vedder’s preoccupation with the theme of the soul flanked by worldly knowledge on one side, a classical figure with the face of age and experience, and by Christian faith on the other, with a face of youth and compassion surrounded by a halo. More on this painting

Elihu Vedder  (1836–1923)

Soul in Bondage, c. from 1891 until 1892

Oil on canvas

Height: 96.1 cm (37.8 in); Width: 60.9 cm (23.9 in)

Brooklyn Museum

In this brooding Symbolist subject titled Soul in Bondage, Vedder brought together his key interests in idealized human form, abstracted design, and the themes of internal spiritual conflict. Profoundly inspired by the writer Edward Fitzgerald's translation of mystical Persian verse in the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, he created numerous subjects representing the individual bound by the dilemma of choice between good and evil symbolized here by the butterfly and the serpent. More on this painting

Elihu Vedder, was the son of Dr. Elihu Vedder Sr. and Elizabeth Vedder. His parents were cousins. His father, a dentist, decided to try his luck in Cuba, and this had a profound impact on Elihu Jr.'s childhood. The remainder of his childhood was spent between his maternal grandfather Alexander Vedder's house in Schenectady and a boarding school. His mother supported his goals to be an artist while his father reluctantly assented, convinced that his son should try a different occupation. His brother, Dr. Alexander Madison Vedder, was a Navy surgeon who witnessed the transformation of Japan into a modern culture while he was stationed there.

 Elihu Vedder, American, 1836 - 1923

The Cup of Death, c. 1885

44 3/8 × 20 3/4 in. (112.71 × 52.71 cm)

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

"So when the Angel of the darker Drink At last shall find you by the river-brink, And, offering his Cup, invite your Soul Forth to your Lips to quaff—you shall not shrink."

The above passage from the forty-ninth quatrain of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám inspired this haunting image of ultimate acceptance. The painting derives from Vedder’s 1884 masterwork—fifty-six illustrations for a deluxe edition of Edward FitzGerald’s translation of the 12th-century Persian text. Vedder’s illustrations to the translated text, which speculates on the mysteries of existence and death, struck a chord with abroad American public traumatized by the Civil War, shaken by the scientific theories of Darwin, and further challenged by foreign immigration, massive industrialization, and growing social discord. More on this painting

Elihu Vedder, 1836-1923

The Fisherman and the Mermaid

Oil on canvas

41.9 x 72.4 cms | 16 1/2 x 28 1/2 ins

Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College

The mermaid was a popular figure during the nineteenth century. Hans Christian Andersen first published “The Little Mermaid” in 1837, and other writers, from Alfred, Lord Tennyson, to Oscar Wilde, also treated the theme. Whether depicted as a destructive temptress or helpless victim, the mermaid embodied the sacrifices associated with living in two worlds. It is not surprising that this creature captivated contemporary observers, who were living through unprecedented cultural, political, and social changes. This canvas is the last of five paintings Vedder made of this subject, which all depict a fisherman hauling a frightened mermaid from the sea in his net. The narrative may be based on a specific, as yet unidentified, source. More on this painting

Vedder trained in New York City with Tompkins H. Matteson, then in Paris with François-Édouard Picot. Finally, he completed his studies in Italy - where he was strongly influenced not only by Italian Renaissance work but also by the modern Macchiaioli painters and the living Italian landscape. He first visited Italy from 1858 until 1860. Their idyllic trips through the Italian countryside were cut short because Vedder's father cut off his financial allowance.

Elihu Vedder, 1836-1923

The Roc's Egg, c. 1868

Oil on canvas

19.1 x 40.6 cms | 7 1/2 x 16 ins

Chrysler Museum of Art

The Roc’s Egg (1868) shows a scene from the legend of Sinbad the sailor, a story-cycle probably of Middle Eastern origin. These tales were a late addition to the compilation known widely as the Thousand and One Nights, but seemed to exist independently before being incorporated there.

In the second voyage of Sinbad, he is accidentally abandoned on an island on which there are roc eggs. Rocs are legendary enormous birds which appear in a number of sources. Here the sailors remove the contents of one of the roc’s giant eggs, which they cook on an open fire. Later in that adventure Sinbad uses a roc to obtain diamonds, before returning home to Baghdad. More on this painting

Elihu Vedder  (1836–1923)

Fisherman and the Genie, circa 1863

Height: 19.3 cm (7.6 in); Width: 35.2 cm (13.8 in)

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Elihu Vedder  (1836–1923)

Fisherman and the Genie (Sketch), circa 1863

Height: 17.4 cm (6.8 in); Width: 29.5 cm (11.6 in)

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Elihu Vedder (American, New York 1836–1923 Rome)

Lair of the Sea Serpent, ca. 1899

Oil on canvas

12 x 30 in. (30.5 x 76.2 cm)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

In 1864 Vedder completed a large painting of a huge mythical creature burrowing into a hillock on a sandy shore. Now in the Museum of Fine Arts (See below), Boston, that painting was based on a sketch that Vedder reworked thirty-five years later to create this canvas. The sea serpent’s immense size, thick, coiled body, and incongruous placement in a tranquil setting suggest the influence on Vedder of nightmarish demons such as those portrayed by Gustave Doré and Francisco de Goya, especially in the latter’s aquatints published as Los Caprichos in 1799. More on this painting

Elihu Vedder (American, 1836–1923)

The Lair of the Sea Serpent, c. 1864

Oil on canvas

54.61 x 93.03 cm (21 1/2 x 36 5/8 in.)

 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Penniless, Vedder returned to the United States during the American Civil War and made a small living undertaking commercial illustrations. He was involved in the bohemian 'Pfaff's' coffee house group and painted some of his most memorable paintings notable for their visionary nature, romantic imagery and often Oriental influences. Paintings of this time include 'The Roc's Egg' (See above), 'The Fisherman and the Genii' (See above) and one of his most famous works, 'Lair of the Sea Serpent (See above).' In the United States. Vedder became a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1865. At the end of the Civil War, Vedder left America to live in Italy.

Elihu Vedder, 1836 - 1923

Dancing Girl, c. 1871

Oil on canvas

39 x 19 3/8 in. (99.1 x 49.2 cm)

 Reynolda House Museum of American Art

Elihu Vedder’s Dancing Girl from 1871 demonstrates the way the artist absorbed and synthesized various influences to create a harmonious whole. In the painting, a fair-haired model stands holding an elaborately decorated tambourine. She is placed before a luxurious tapestry depicting lush vegetation and exotic animals, including lions, camels, and deer. She is richly attired in a Renaissance-style gown, but she raises her skirts to reveal Turkish-style leggings and slippers, suggesting that the setting is a harem. Surrounding her are various elements for entertainment: a wheel for predicting fortunes for her audience, juggling balls, and sticks. Although the painting is called Dancing Girl, she is not depicted dancing, but rather posing serenely, lips parted, gazing to the side. She is less an actor and more an aesthetic object, like the tapestry and painted tambourine. More on this painting

Vedder visited England many times, and was influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites, and was a friend of Simeon Solomon. He was also influenced by the work of English and Irish mystics such as William Blake and William Butler Yeats. In 1890 Vedder helped establish the In Arte Libertas group in Italy.

Lobby to Main Reading Room. Peace and Prosperity mural by Elihu Vedder. Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson Building, Washington, D.C

In Peace and Prosperity (1896), the symbolic figure rests her hands on laurel wreaths, indicating victory. At the left, a youth is painting decorations onto urns, and behind him is a lyre. On the right, another youth is planting a tree for the future, with a billhook and spade.  More on this painting

Corrupt legislation mural by Elihu Vedder, Jefferson Building, Library of Congress

Corrupt Legislation (1896) is a more elaborate composition which looks at the consequences of poor government. The central figure is more floozy than goddess, holding a set of scales in her left hand. At the right of the painting, and on that left hand, is a lawyer, with an open book labelled The Law. At his feet, banknotes fall out of an urn, there are small sacks of grain, and a small portable ‘safe’.

At the left, apparently pleading with the central figure, is a young girl holding any empty distaff and bobbin for spinning. Behind her are shards from a broken pot, and a broken-down wall.

Vedder also made a beautiful mosaic which is in the central arched panel leading to the Visitor’s Gallery of the Library of Congress: Minerva of Peace (1897). More on this painting

Government by Elihu Vedder. Center panel, above Main Reading Room doors. Library of Congress

Anarchy mural by Elihu Vedder. Lobby to Main Reading Room. Source: Library of Congress

Good Legislation mural by Elihu Vedder. Lobby to Main Reading Room. Source: Library of Congress 

Tiffany commissioned him to design glassware, mosaics and statuettes for the company. He decorated the hallway of the Reading Room of the Washington Library of Congress, and his mural paintings (See above) can still be seen there.

Vedder occasionally returned to the United States, but lived only in Italy from 1906 until his death on January 29, 1923. He is buried in the Protestant Cemetery, Rome. There are no known living descendants of Elihu Vedder as both surviving children died without issue. More on Elihu Vedder

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20 Works, Today, February 25th. is artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir's day, his story, illustrated with footnotes #056

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1841 - 1919

The Skiff (La Yole), c. 1875

Oil on canvas

71 x 92 cm

National Gallery

This sunlit scene on the river Seine is typical of the imagery that has come to characterise Impressionism, and Renoir includes several familiar Impressionist motifs such as fashionably dressed women, a rowing boat, a sail boat, and a steam train crossing a bridge. The exact location has not been identified, but we are probably looking at the river near Chatou, some ten miles west of central Paris, which was a popular spot for recreational boating.

Renoir creates an effect of summer heat and light by using bright unmixed paint directly from the tube and by avoiding black or earth tones. In placing the bright orange boat against the dark blue water, Renoir has deliberately used complementary colours, which become more intense when seen alongside each other. More on this painting

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (25 February 1841 – 3 December 1919) was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that "Renoir is the final representative of a tradition which runs directly from Rubens to Watteau."

Pierre-Auguste Renoir  (1841–1919)

La loge/ The Theater Box, c. 1874

Oil on canvas

127 × 92 cm (50 × 36.2 in)

Courtauld Institute of Art

Theatre in Paris was a rapidly expanding industry during the 19th century, dominating the cultural life of the city.   The theatre was an important place to see and to be seen.  Wealth was flaunted; fashions paraded; allegiances made; and engagements announced.  In turning away from the performance, Renoir focused instead upon the theatre as a social stage where status and relationships were on public display. More on this painting

Pierre-Auguste Renoir  (1841–1919)

Sleeping Girl with a Cat, c. 1880

Oil on canvas

120 x 94 cm

Clark Art Institute

A young woman dozes in a chair, her striped stockings and plain skirt suggesting her humble background. The undergarment slipping off her shoulder attracts our gaze, while giving the impression that she is unaware of being observed. The model is thought to have been a resident of Montmartre known for her colorful slang and erratic lifestyle. The image’s suggestive nature is underscored by the presence of the equally sleepy cat resting in her lap. More on this painting

Pierre-Auguste Renoir was born in Limoges, Haute-Vienne, France, in 1841. His father, Léonard Renoir, was a tailor of modest means, so in 1844, Renoir's family moved to Paris in search of more favorable prospects. The location of their home, in rue d’Argenteuil in central Paris, placed Renoir in proximity to the Louvre. Due to the family's financial circumstances, Renoir had to leave school at the age of thirteen to pursue an apprenticeship at a porcelain factory.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir  (1841–1919)

A Nymph by a Stream, from 1869 until 1870

Oil on canvas

Height: 66.5 cm (26.1 in); Width: 124 cm (48.8 in)

National Gallery

This is one of the first nudes that Renoir painted. He took a traditional artistic approach, depicting the woman in a natural setting, reclining by a stream as though she were a naiad (water nymph) from the world of Greek mythology. She appears to be lying on a grassy, flower-flecked bank beside the stream, leaning with her elbow in the brook and allowing the water to flow between her fingers, but Renoir’s brushstrokes are so fluid that we can’t be entirely sure where the bank ends and the water begins.

This painting is also – in some senses – a portrait. Rather than idealising the nymph’s features in the way that more academic contemporary painters, such as Ingres, would have done, Renoir has made her recognisable. She is Lise Tréhot, the artist’s lover and the female model for almost all of his work during the early stages of his career. More on this painting

Renoir displayed a talent for his work, he frequently tired of the subject matter and sought refuge in the galleries of the Louvre. The owner of the factory recognized his apprentice's talent and communicated this to Renoir's family. Following this, Renoir started taking lessons to prepare for entry into Ecole des Beaux Arts. 

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919)

Lise with the parasol/ Lise - La femme à l'ombrelle, c. 1867

Oil on canvas

Height: 184.0 cm; Width: 115.0 cm

Folkwang Museum

In 1862, he began studying art under Charles Gleyre in Paris. There he met Alfred Sisley, Frédéric Bazille, and Claude Monet. At times, during the 1860s, he did not have enough money to buy paint. Renoir had his first success at the Salon of 1868 with his painting Lise with a Parasol (1867) (See above), which depicted Lise Tréhot, his lover at the time. Although Renoir first started exhibiting paintings at the Paris Salon in 1864, recognition was slow in coming, partly as a result of the turmoil of the Franco-Prussian War.

Renoir was inspired by the style and subject matter of previous modern painters Camille Pissarro and Edouard Manet. After a series of rejections by the Salon juries, he joined forces with Monet, Sisley, Pissarro, and several other artists to mount the first Impressionist exhibition in April 1874, in which Renoir displayed six paintings. Although the critical response to the exhibition was largely unfavorable, Renoir's work was comparatively well received. That same year, two of his works were shown with Durand-Ruel in London.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir  (1841–1919)

Bal du moulin de la Galette/ Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette, c. 1876

Oil on canvas

Height: 131 cm (51.5 in); Width: 175 cm (68.8 in)

Musée d'Orsay

Bal du moulin de la Galette is an 1876 painting by Renoir. It is one of Impressionism's most celebrated masterpieces. The painting depicts a typical Sunday afternoon at the original Moulin de la Galette in the district of Montmartre in Paris. In the late 19th century, working class Parisians would dress up and spend time there dancing, drinking, and eating galettes into the evening. More on this painting

Pierre-Auguste Renoir  (1841–1919)

The Swing, c. 1876

Oil on canvas

Height: 92 cm (36.2 in); Width: 73 cm (28.7 in)

Musée d'Orsay 

Renoir's people seem to stand on a forest floor of blossoms. The girl, Jeanne Samary, on the swing could be fifteen, her pink dress with a hat on head increases the charm of painting. The quivering light is rendered by the patches of pale colour, particularly on the clothing and the ground. This particularly annoyed the critics when the painting was shown at the Impressionist exhibition of 1877.

The model, Jeanne Samary, a favourite of Renoir's who appears in many of his paintings. The two men are Renoir's brother Edmond and a painter friend Norbert Goeneutte. More on this painting

Hoping to secure a livelihood by attracting portrait commissions, Renoir displayed mostly portraits at the second Impressionist exhibition in 1876. He contributed a more diverse range of paintings the next year when the group presented its third exhibition; they included Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette (See above) and The Swing (See above). Renoir did not exhibit in the fourth or fifth Impressionist exhibitions, and instead resumed submitting his works to the Salon. By the end of the 1870s, particularly after the success of his painting Mme Charpentier and her Children (1878) (See below) at the Salon of 1879, Renoir was a successful and fashionable painter.  

Pierre-Auguste Renoir  (1841–1919)

Mme. Charpentier and Her Children, c. 1878

Oil on canvas

Height: 153 cm (60.2 in); Width: 190 cm (74.8 in)

Metropolitan Museum of Art

In this portrait Renoir gave expression to "the poetry of an elegant home and the beautiful dresses of our time. In the Japanese-style sitting room of her Parisian townhouse—the décor and chic gown testifying to her stylish taste—Marguerite Charpentier sits beside her son, Paul. At age three, his locks are still uncut and, in keeping with current fashion, he is dressed identically to his sister Georgette, perched on the family dog. The well-connected publisher's wife, who hosted elite literary salons attended by such writers as Flaubert, the Goncourts, and Zola, used her influence to ensure that the painting enjoyed a choice spot at the Salon of 1879. More on this painting

In 1881, he traveled to Algeria, a country he associated with Eugène Delacroix, then to Madrid, to see the work of Diego Velázquez. Following that, he traveled to Italy to see Titian's masterpieces in Florence and the paintings of Raphael in Rome. On 15 January 1882, Renoir met the composer Richard Wagner (See below) at his home in Palermo, Sicily. Renoir painted Wagner's portrait in just thirty-five minutes. In the same year, after contracting pneumonia which permanently damaged his respiratory system, Renoir convalesced for six weeks in Algeria.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir  (1841–1919)

Richard Wagner, c. 1882

Oil on canvas

53 × 46 cm (20.8 × 18.1 in)

Orsay Museum

In 1883, Renoir spent the summer in Guernsey, one of the islands in the English Channel with a varied landscape of beaches, cliffs, and bays, where he created fifteen paintings in little over a month. Most of these feature Moulin Huet (See below), a bay in Saint Martin's, Guernsey. 

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Moulin Huet Bay, Guernsey, c. 1841 - 1919

Oil on canvas

29.2 x 54 cm

National Gallery, London

Renoir was starting to break away from some of the techniques of the Impressionist approach to landscape painting, which involved producing pictures almost entirely out in the open air. Instead he experimented with a return to the more traditional discipline of making oil sketches on site and a finished painting in the studio.

This is one of those sketches, and the spontaneity with which it was made is palpable. The figures are rendered with only a handful of brushstrokes, and the foam on the waves in the foreground is indicated with quick dabs and simple, wavy lines. It seems to have been made in one session: the figures were added while the paint layers of the sea were still wet. More on this painting

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Hills around Moulin Huet Bay, Guernsey, c. 1883 

Oil on canvas

46x65cm

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

While living and working in Montmartre, Renoir employed Suzanne Valadon as a model, who posed for him (The Large Bathers, 1884–87 (See below); Dance at Bougival, 1883 (See below)) and many of his fellow painters; during that time she studied their techniques and eventually became one of the leading painters of the day.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, French, 1841 - 1919

The Large Bathers, from 1884 until 87

Oil on canvas 

Height: 1,178.81 mm (46.40 in); Width: 1,709.42 mm (67.30 in)

Philadelphia Museum of Art

Depicted people: Aline Charigot , Suzanne Valadon

Although this painting depicts a fleeting moment when one bather playfully threatens to splash a companion, it has a timeless, monumental quality. The sculptural rendering of the figures against a shimmering landscape and the careful application of dry paint reflect the tradition of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century French painting. Renoir--in an attempt to reconcile this tradition with modern painting--labored over this work for three years, making numerous preparatory drawings for individual figures and at least two full-scale, multifigure drawings. Faced with criticism of his new style after completing The Large Bathers, an exhausted Renoir never again devoted such painstaking effort to a single work. More on this painting

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

The Bathers, c. 1918–19

Oil on canvas

60 cm × 110 cm (24 in × 43 in)

Musée d'Orsay, Paris

There are two groups of naked women: two models lying in the foreground plus three bathers in the background, on the right. One of the models of this painting is Andrée Hessling, who became the first wife of Renoir's son, Jean. The natural setting displayed in the painting was the large garden of the house owned by the painter in Cagnes-sur-Mer. More on this painting

Pierre-Auguste Renoir  (1841–1919)

Dance at Bougival, c. 1883

Oil on canvas

Height: 181.9 cm (71.6 in); Width: 98.1 cm (38.6 in)

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 

Dance at Bougival is one of three in a collection commissioned by Paul Durand-Ruel.

The painting depicts two dancers surrounded by a lively scene of café goers. The painting's actual subjects are disputed, but it is well known for conveying the sense that they are in motion, making the viewer feel that they are actually there. Renoir used mostly pastel colors, but included a more vibrant hue in the hats of the both subjects. More on this painting

In 1887, the year when Queen Victoria celebrated her Golden Jubilee, and upon the request of the queen's associate, Phillip Richbourg, Renoir donated several paintings to the "French Impressionist Paintings" catalog as a token of his loyalty.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir  (1841–1919)

Le déjeuner des canotiers/ Luncheon of the Boating Party, from 1880 until 1881

Oil on canvas

Height: 1,302 mm (51.25 in); Width: 1,756 mm (69.13 in)

The Phillips Collection

Depicted people: Aline Charigot, Charles Ephrussi, Ellen Andrée, Jeanne Samary, Gustave Caillebotte.

Luncheon of the Boating Party was ncluded in the Seventh Impressionist Exhibition in 1882, it was identified as the best painting in the show by three critics. It is now in The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C.

The painting, combining figures, still-life, and landscape in one work, depicts a group of Renoir's friends relaxing on a balcony at the Maison Fournaise restaurant along the Seine river in Chatou, France. The painter and art patron, Gustave Caillebotte, is seated in the lower right. Renoir's future wife, Aline Charigot, is in the foreground playing with a small dog; she replaced an earlier woman who sat for the painting but with whom Renoir became annoyed. More on this painting

In 1890, he married Aline Victorine Charigot, a dressmaker twenty years his junior, who, along with a number of the artist's friends, had already served as a model for Le Déjeuner des canotiers (Luncheon of the Boating Party (See above) – she is the woman on the left playing with the dog) in 1881, and with whom he had already had a child, Pierre, in 1885. After his marriage, Renoir painted many scenes of his wife and daily family life including their children and their nurse, Aline's cousin Gabrielle Renard. 

Pierre-Auguste Renoir  (1841–1919)

he Umbrellas, circa 1881 -86

Oil on canvas

Height: 180.3 cm (70.9 in); Width: 114.9 cm (45.2 in)

National Gallery

This painting places us in a busy Parisian street close to six principal figures who fill the foreground. A milling crowd behind them almost completely blocks out the boulevard beyond. The top quarter of the picture is mostly filled by a canopy of at least a dozen umbrellas.

Painted in two stages, with a gap of around four years between each stage, it shows the change in Renoir’s art during the 1880s, when he was beginning to move away from Impressionism and looking instead to classical art. The group on the right, which includes a mother and her two daughters and the woman in profile in the centre, is painted in a characteristically Impressionist manner with delicate feathery touches of rich luminous tones. On the left of the composition, completed during the second stage, Renoir adopted a more linear style. The figures here, including the full-length young woman and the man standing behind her, have clearly defined outlines, precisely drawn features and a greater sense of three-dimensional form. More on this painting

Pierre Auguste Renoir

Girls in black, c. 1880-1882

Oil on canvas

81.3x65.2 cm

Museum of Fine Arts. A.S. Pushkin

Renoir met Aline Charigot, a young dressmaker of 20 years old then, in 1879, when the artist was nearly 40.

Aline's father was a wine grower from Essoyes, a small village in the province of Champagne. Alina's mother was also a dressmaker.

When Aline was 15 months, her father left for America, her mother found a job somewhere far from Essoyes. Aline lived with her uncle and aunt until her mother moved to Paris in 1872. Two years later Aline joined her and started working as a dressmaker. More on Aline Charigot

Pierre-Auguste Renoir  (1841–1919)

Maternité, dit aussi l'Enfant au sein/ Maternity, c. 1885

Oil on canvas

Height: 910 mm (35.82 in); Width: 720 mm (28.34 in)

Musée d'Orsay

Depicted people: Aline Charigot, Pierre Renoir

Around 1892, Renoir developed rheumatoid arthritis. In 1907, he moved to the warmer climate of "Les Collettes," a farm at the village of Cagnes-sur-Mer, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur (See below), close to the Mediterranean coast. Renoir painted during the last twenty years of his life even after his arthritis severely limited his mobility. He developed progressive deformities in his hands and ankylosis of his right shoulder, requiring him to change his painting technique. 

Pierre-Auguste Renoir  (1841–1919)

Landscape near Cagnes-sur-Mer, c. 1908 and 1914

Oil on canvas

Height: 19 cm (7.4 in); Width: 24 cm (9.4 in)

National Museum in Warsaw

In 1919, Renoir visited the Louvre to see his paintings hanging with those of the old masters. During this period, he created sculptures by cooperating with a young artist, Richard Guino, who worked the clay. 

Pierre-Auguste Renoir  (1841–1919)

Tilla Durieux, c. 1914

Oil on canvas

Height: 92.1 cm (36.2 in); Width: 73.7 cm (29 in)

Metropolitan Museum of Art

In July 1914, just prior to the outbreak of World War I, the famous German actress Tilla Durieux traveled to Paris with her husband, the art dealer Paul Cassirer, to pose for Renoir. The classicizing, pyramidal format of this composition lends a certain grandeur to the sitter, attired in the costume that the couturier Poiret designed for her role as Eliza Doolittle in George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion in 1913. When Renoir painted this ambitious portrait, he was so crippled with arthritis that he had to sit in a wheelchair with his brush strapped to his hand. More on this painting

Renoir's portrait of Austrian actress Tilla Durieux (1914) contains playful flecks of vibrant color on her shawl that offset the classical pose of the actress and highlight Renoir's skill just five years before his death.

Renoir died at Cagnes-sur-Mer on 3 December 1919. More on Pierre-Auguste Renoir