19 Works, December 30th. is Osman Hamdi Bey's day, his art, illustrated with footnotes #257

Osman Hamdi Bey

At the Mosque Door (Cami Kapısında), c. 1891

Oil on canvas

82 x 43 inches (208.5 x 109 cm)

Private collection

A total of 17 figures, 16 people and a dog, are skillfully depicted in front of the Yeşil Mosque in Bursa. The painting, which reveals the fine workmanship of the Ottoman architecture and the detail in the decorations, is a document about the Ottoman daily life. It is stated in the painting that Osman Hamdi Bey drew a ladder to add movement to the painting, although there is no ladder in front of the Bursa Green Mosque. More on this painting

Osman Hamdi Bey (30 December 1842, in Istanbul – 24 February 1910) was an Ottoman administrator, intellectual, art expert and also a prominent and pioneering painter. He was also an accomplished archaeologist, and is regarded as the pioneer of the museum curator's profession in Turkey. He was the founder of Istanbul Archaeology Museums and of the Istanbul Academy of Fine Arts. He was also the first mayor of Kadıköy.

Osman Hamdi

In the Harem, c. 1880

Oil on canvas

56 x 116 cm

Erol Kerim Aksoy collection

Writing of his European travels in 1895, the Ottoman journalist and writer Ahmed Midhat Efendi complained that, “the symbol of the East is a beloved sprawled on a couch … Since her clothing reveals more than it conceals, just as her legs hang from the couch spread apart, her belly and her chest are only half-covered with transparent gauzy fabrics as thin as a dream … However, much contact with this image gives the pleasure of beautiful things to the eyes, it is not a reality, but a dream, a poem … For one would think that this body is not the wife of her husband and the mother of her children, but perhaps only a plaything to serve the pleasures of the man who owns the house”.

Osman Hamdi Bey

Two Musician Girls, c. 1880

Oil on canvas

58 x 39 cm

Pera Müzesi, Istanbul, Turkey

Two Musician Girls illustrates young women playing the tambourine and a tambur (lute), traditional Ottoman instruments. They are in a corner room of the Yeşil Camii, (Green Mosque or Mosque of Mehmed I) in Bursa. Osman repeated here the same Islamic identifiers: the rugs, the beautifully painted tiles, wooden workmanship, and the richly decorated interiors. What must be emphasized here is his approach to female identity. Unlike Jean-Léon Gérôme’s Pool in a Harem, Hamdi Bey never put emphasis on sexuality. 

Two Musician Girls (1880) is particularly interesting for showing its figures with two traditional Turkish musical instruments. The large stringed instrument is a tambur, a member of the lute family which was plucked, and the large tambourine is a daf. More on this painting

Osman Hamdy Bey

A Lady of Constantinople, c. 1881

Oil on canvas

120 x 60 cm, 47.24 x 23.62 in

Private collection

After the visit of Empress Eugénie to Constantinople in 1869, women's costume in that city changed dramatically. French fashion magazines were widely circulated – even within the harem - and dresses were ordered directly from Paris or commissioned from seamstresses in Pera, in emulation of the styles. As elements of European fashion were selectively adopted and combined with traditional Turkish dress, a hybrid style emerged – one that did not conform to the exotic imaginings of European artists and travellers. More on this painting

Osman Hamdy Bey

The Yellow Dress, c. 1881

Oil on canvas

61 by 40cm., 24 by 15 3/4 in

Private collection

The Yellow Dress, while loosely conforming to the 'Orientalist' genre, it counters the expectations of the nineteenth-century western viewer. Women were often portrayed to promulgate Europeans' pre-conceived romantic notions of the East: as overtly kept women or as racy and sultry nudes in exotic-looking harems. By contrast, Hamdy Bey's paintings of women are delicately understated, and set in the modern world. Here, a virtuous young girl regards herself in a looking glass as she gets dressed to go out, her maid in attendance. Other than that she is of the privileged classes and well to do, her identity is unknown. She might even be one of the Sultan's favourites, but if so and if the elegant boudoir is part of the Sultan's palace, it is not obvious.

Hamdy Bey was more interested in capturing the fashions and mores of his day, which he did with painstaking detail and accuracy.  The interior in The Yellow Dress is not a romanticised figment of the imagination, but decorated in the French rococo style fashionable in Constantinople by the 1870s, complete with parquet flooring and the latest printed silk upholstery. The dress fashion, too, is revealing about changing tastes among Turkish women at the time. French fashions were beginning to replace traditional Ottoman costumes, although the translucent veil, or yashmak, was still worn in public. Here, the girl in the yellow dress is seen tying hers, her maid holding out in readiness the black kaftan worn over the dress. More on this painting

Osman Hamdi Bey (1842–1910)

Persian Carpet Dealer on the Street (1888)

Oil on canvas

60 x 122 cm

Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin

The "Turkish street scene" shows the captivating ingredients of his art: In front of a niche of a well-known historical well building in Constantinople, around which such trade was carried out, two men offer a tourist couple with a daughter some carpets, while a third stands close behind the woman and she does this seems to advise. The delicate and finely painted picture reveals itself as a suggestive collage, which also served common ideas. While the dealers wear historicizing costumes, the potential buyer with his pith helmet and his unsuspecting gaze appears as a cliché of a traveler to the Orient. Osman Hamdy Bey used objects from his possession that can be found in many of his paintings to depict the antiques that are also on sale, including an imposing vase. More on this painting

Osman Hamdi
Mihrap/Genesis, c. 1901

Oil on canvas

210 x 108 cm

I have no further description, at this time

This work was exhibited for the first time in the same year in Berlin, and later to be presented at the Royal Academy Exhibition in London in 1903.

The large painting depicts a young woman sitting on a “rahle” (a support for reading the Quran), with her back to the mihrap, the niche facing Mecca, the holy place of Islam. The young woman, who is pregnant, wears a yellow dress, whose cut is not medieval, but from the 19th century. Manuscripts and books appear at her feet, including Zend-i-Avesta, the holy book of the Zoroastrians, and a Quran. The artist’s signature appears on one of the books at the young woman’s feet. More on this painting

"For him, the young pregnant lady is a personification of a Turkey (and, by extension, of the Ottoman Empire) that turns its back on the past and looks to the future." Edhem Eldem

Osman Hamdi Bey

The miracle fountain, c. 1904

Oil on canvas

200 x 151 cm

Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin

A bearded man with distinctive features, dressed in a silk robe, reads a handwriting. Standing on a carpet, he leans against a Koran case inlaid with mother-of-pearl in front of a fountain niche. Many facets of the complex figure of Osman Hamdy Bey seem to be reflected in the orientalizing genre image that combines objects from the Islamic art trade, classic Ottoman architecture and oriental-looking costume.

The golden jug refers to the 18th century and calligraphy refers to the founder of a Sufi order, while the Koran shrine comes from the collection of the Topkapı Palace. For the fountain niche from the 16th century, the template can be found in the oldest Ottoman building in Istanbul, in Çinili Köşk from 1472, which was part of the Imperial Museum of Antiquities. More on this painting

Osman Hamdi, orphaned at a very young age was adopted by Kaptan-ı Derya (Grand Admiral) Hüsrev Pasha and eventually rose to the ranks of the ruling class of the Ottoman Empire.

Osman Hamdi went to primary school in the popular Istanbul quarter of Beşiktaş; after which he studied Law, first in Istanbul (1856) and then in Paris (1860). However, he decided to pursue his interest in painting instead, left the Law program, and trained under French orientalist painters Jean-Léon Gérôme and Gustave Boulanger. 

OSMAN HAMDY BEY, Ottoman, 1842 - 1910

KORANIC INSTRUCTION/ Reading the Coran, c. 1890

Oil on canvas

80 by 60cm., 31½ by 23½in.

Private collection

Sold for 4,640,100 GBP in October 2019

The opulent tiled setting of the present work is a secluded corner of the Yesil Cami, or Green Mosque, in Bursa in western Anatolia. Framed by a Mamluk lantern and monumental candlestick, two men face one another, the seated man receiving Koranic instruction from the standing hoja or teacher.

The present work contains several subtle details that challenge the noble occupation of Koranic instruction. The preaching imam remarkably still wears his slippers despite the need to remain barefoot inside a mosque. His pupil, his slippers casually discarded in the niche beneath the alcove, appears on the verge of falling asleep. The painting is a manifestation of ideological and societal tension that not only offers European viewers an insight into Ottoman life but also promulgates a new and radical form of visual expression at home. More on this painting

Osman Hamdi Bey  (1842–1910)

Hodja Reading The Qoran, c. 1910

Oil on canvas

Height: 72.5 cm (28.5 in); Width: 53 cm (20.8 in)

Sakıp Sabancı Museum

Muslims believe that the Quran was verbally revealed by God to the prophet Muhammad through the angel Gabriel over a period of roughly 23 years. These revelations were transcribed by followers in the period following Mohammad's death, and each verse has a particular historical content that does not follow a linear or historical narrative. The Quran assumes that readers are already familiar with some of the major themes found in Biblical scriptures, and it offers commentary or interpretations of some of those events. More on the Quran

Osman Hamdy Bey

The Scholar, c. 1878

Oil on canvas

Private collection

Estimate for 3,000,000 - 5,000,000 GBP in April 2012

The setting for the painting is a secluded corner of a madrasa or a mosque. The scholar lies reading a book on a carpeted ledge against a wall of turquoise hexagonal tiles. The niche in the wall is similar to those found in the seventeenth-century Twin Pavilions in the Topkapi palace, while the thirteenth-century Western Iranian candlestick on the left relates closely to an example now in the Victoria & Albert Museum. One of the books in the niche is inscribed Qamus ('Dictionary' in Arabic), possibly referring to al-Firuzabadi's al-Qamus al-Muhit – 'The Great Dictionary'. The carved Kufic inscription to the left of the niche is an invocation to God and reads bismillah wa ma tawfi illa b'illah (Koran, chapter XI (Hud), part of verse 88), but Hamdy Bey takes some playful artistic licence, audaciously adding his own name to the right of the niche. The closely cropped composition suggests that Hamdy Bey may have had recourse to photographs as he did for the later version, a practice favoured by the French academic painters, in particular Jean-Léon Gérôme whom Hamdy had met during his training in Paris. More on this painting

His stay in Paris was also marked by the first ever visit by an Ottoman sultan to Western Europe, when Sultan Abdülaziz was invited to the Exposition Universelle (1867) by Emperor Napoleon III. He also met many of the Young Ottomans in Paris, and even though he was exposed to their liberal ideas, he did not participate in their political activities.

Osman Hamdi Bey

Silah Taciri/ Arms Dealer, c. 1908

Oil on canvas

175 x 130 cm

Eczacıbaşı virtual museum

The Arms Dealer is a work that depicts himself (as two people) and his son together in clothes of an older era. Osman Hamdi painted himself sitting on a column capital. It is thought that with the column head on which it sits, it refers to the founding of the museum. The hand gesture is interpreted as giving advice to his son. More on the Arms Dealer

Once back in Turkey, he was sent to the Ottoman province of Baghdad as part of the administrative team of Midhat Pasha. In 1871, Osman Hamdi returned to Istanbul, as the vice-director of the Protocol Office of the Palace. During the 1870s, he worked on several assignments in the upper echelons of the Ottoman bureaucracy. He was appointed as the first mayor of Kadıköy in 1875, and stayed in that position for one year.

Below are two portraits by Osman Hamdi Bey of his second wife Marie, who later took the name Naile Hanım. The name of his first wife was also Marie, and both of them were French. From his first wife Marie, whom he met in Paris, he had two daughters named Fatma and Hayriye. From his second wife Marie (Naile Hanım), whom he met in Vienna, he had three daughters named Melek, Leyla and Nazlı, and one son named Edhem.

Osman Hamdi Bey

Portrait of a woman (His wife Naile Hanim)

Oil on canvas

98 x 68 cm.

Sakıp Sabancı Museum

This portrait significantly reflects a synthesis of Byzantine icons and Ottoman court portraiture.

Marie Palyart, Osman Hamdi Bey’s second  wife acquired the name Naile after her  marriage. Very little is known about her  other than that she was born in France in  1863 and that her mother Germaine Palyart  also lived in Istanbul. Osman Hamdi Bey  and Naile Hanım had three children, namely  Leyla (1880-1950), Edhem (1882-1957)  and Nazlı (1893-1958). She continued to  live in Istanbul after her husband’s death in  1910, went to live in Paris with her daughter  Nazlı in 1930s, returned to Istanbul with  the outbreak of World War II and died on 21  September 1943, to be buried in the Latin  Catholic Cemetery at Feriköy. 

Osman Hamdi Bey (1842-1910)

Portrait of Naile Hanım

Oil on canvas

52 x 41 cm

Sakıp Sabancı Museum

The gold color around the portrait has  always been related to holy personalities  in Islamic art, Europe of the Middle Ages,  early Renaissance and even as far back as  Ancient Egypt. Osman Hamdi Bey who is  among the first Turkish artists to depict  women on canvas paintings used the gold background applied in Byzantine icons to  stress the divinity of the figure in her wife  Naile Hanım’s portrait. More on Naile Hanım

An important step in his career was his assignment as the director of the Imperial Museum in 1881. He used his position as museum director to develop the museum and rewrite the antiquities laws and to create nationally sponsored archaeological expeditions. Osman Hamdi focused on building relationships with international institutions, notably the University of Pennsylvania, from which he received an honorary degree in 1894. In 1902, he painted the excavation of Nippur as a gift to the University of Pennsylvania Museum. In 1882, he instituted and became director of the Academy of Fine Arts. In 1884, he oversaw the promulgation of a Regulation prohibiting historical artifacts from being smuggled abroad.

Osman Hamdi Bey  (1842–1910)

Excavation of Nippur

Oil on canvas

Penn Museum

When Hilprecht’s book Explorations in Bible Lands appeared in 1903, he selected one of Haynes’s photos of the Nippur excavations as the frontispiece. Hilprecht immediately presented a copy of the book to Osman Hamdi Bey, who in turn employed the frontispiece image as the subject of this monumental painting, 

As an amusing gesture of friendship, Hamdi Bey inserted Hilprecht into the painting, depicting him examining the pottery in the middle distance.

The Excavations at Nippur of 1903. Originally intended for a projected Nippur Gallery at the Penn Museum. When the University balked at displaying the painting, Sallie Crozer Robinson Hilprecht purchased it as a gift for her husband. It finally came to the Penn Museum in 1948, as a bequest of Mrs. Hilprecht’s granddaughter, Elise Robinson Paumgarten. More on Excavation of Nippur

Osman Hamdi Bey

At the Mosque Door

Oil on canvas

Penn Museum

At the Mosque Door was in the Museum Archives since the department was set up in the late 1970s, known to some scholars but not the general public. It was purchased by the Museum in 1895 after being displayed in multiple exhibitions, as a way to incur favor with Hamdi Bey, and obtain a share of the finds from the Museum’s earliest excavations in ancient Nippur, located in present-day Iraq.

Several distinct figures appear in the painting’s foreground, but a closer look supports the consensus that many of these figures are in fact the artist himself! More on this painting

He conducted the first scientific based archaeological researches done by a Turkish team. To lodge these, he started building what is today the Istanbul Archaeology Museum in 1881. The museum officially opened in 1891 under his directorship.

Osman Hamdi Bey  (1842–1910)

Arzuhalci / Public Scribe, c. 1910

Height: 110 cm (43.3 in); Width: 77 cm (30.3 in)

Sakıp Sabancı Museum

Public Scribe may have been part of a campaign to improve education and literacy, particularly among women.

Throughout his professional career as museum and academy director, Osman Hamdi continued to paint in the style of his teachers, Gérôme and Boulanger. Yet, he frequently depicted himself and his family members in these paintings, complicating an assumption of a removed orientalist gaze in his work.

Osman Hamdi Bey  (1842–1910)

The Tortoise Trainer, c. early 20th Century

Oil on canvas

Height: 2,215 mm (87.20 in); Width: 1,200 mm (47.24 in)

Pera Museum, Istanbul

The painting depicts an elderly man in traditional Ottoman religious costume: a long red garment with embroidered hem, belted at the waist, and a Turkish turban. The figure may be a self-portrait of Hamdi himself. The anachronistic costume predates the introduction of the fez and the spread of Western style dress with the Tanzimat reforms in the mid-19th century. He holds a traditional ney flute and bears a nakkare drum on his back, with a drumstick handing to his front. The man's costume and instruments suggests he may be a Dervish.

The scene is set in a dilapidated upper room at the Green Mosque, Bursa, where the man is attempting to "train" the five tortoises at his feet, but they are ignoring him preferring instead to eat the green leaves on the floor. Above a pointed window is the inscription: "Şifa'al-kulûp lika'al Mahbub" ("The healing of the hearts is meeting with the beloved"). More on this painting

Osman Hamdi Bey

Girl Reciting Qur'an, c. 1880

Oil on canvas

Height: 41.1 cm (16.1 in); Width: 51 cm (20 in)

Malaysian Islamic Arts Museum

The Young Girl Reading the Qur'an, displays many of the qualities for which Osman Hamdi became best known. The impeccably rendered dress of the kneeling figure and the decorative background against which she is set, rich in colour and Islamic designs, are virtual signatures of the artist, as is the startling clarity of the picture's highly detailed style. The precision of its surface, however, masks significant ambiguities at its core: The book that the woman has chosen, the direction of her gaze, and even the parting of her lips and the buttons at her neck, all serve to undermine our first impressions of the scene. What begins as a pretty harem picture, in other words, becomes a complicated and multi-referential text which addresses a variety of topical issues within the landscapes of Orientalism, 19th century art history, and aspects of the artist's biography itself. Through its transposition of British, French, and Turkish models, and its manipulation of their themes, Young Woman Reading demonstrates the unique nature of Osman Hamdi's Orientalism, and his artful game. More on this painting

Hamdi's 1906 painting, The Tortoise Trainer (See above), has held the record until 2019 for the most valuable Turkish painting. The painting depicts Hamdi's likeness clad in antiquated clothing, training tortoises in a mosque. This choice of subject matter leads many to see this painting as a commentary on Turkey's conflicted national identity. His Girl Reciting Qur'an (1880) (See above) broke the record by realizing US$7.8 million at a Bonhams auction in September 2019. . More on Osman Hamdi Bey

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20 Works, December 12th. is Karl Bryullov's day, his art, illustrated with footnotes #248

Brulloff Karl (1799 - 1852)

Juliet Tittoni as Jeanna D'Ark, c. 1850-1852

Oil on canvas

Tittoni family private collection

Having become close in Italy with the Tittoni family, Bryullov created portraits of almost his entire family, and in 1852 he painted a portrait of Juliet Tittoni.

Karl Pavlovich Bryullov (12 December 1799 – 11 June 1852), original name Charles Bruleau, also transliterated Briullov and Briuloff, was a Russian painter. He is regarded as a key figure in transition from the Russian neoclassicism to romanticism.

Brulloff Karl (1799 - 1852)

Diana, Endymion, and Satyr, c. 1849

Oil on cardboard

46.5x58.5 

The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia

The painting ‘Diana, Endymion and Satyr’ was based on the erotic novel of the 18th century by the Italian poet Giambattista Casti. The myth about beautiful Endymion who seduced goddess Diana was very popular in Russian art. More on this painting

Diana is known for her affair with the beautiful mortal Endymion, the young shepherd who used to sleep on a mountain, and with whom she had fifty daughters.

Karl Bryullov

Satyr and Bacchante, c. 1824

Oil, canvas

25.5 x 21 cm

I have no further description, at this time

The satyr, recognisable by his cloven hooves, is a rural divinity symbolizing temptation and desire. Bacchantes are nymphs linked to the cult of Dionysus (or Bacchus). They are always depicted naked or scantily clad, wearing a crown of flowers, dancing or playing music. The two figures are rarely shown together.

Karl Bryullov was born in the family of the academician, woodcarver, and engraver Pavel Ivanovich Briullo who was of Huguenot descent. He felt drawn to Italy from his early years. Despite his education at the Imperial Academy of Arts (1809–1821), Bryullov never fully embraced the classical style taught by his mentors and promoted by his brother, Alexander Bryullov. 

Karl Bryullov  (1799–1852)

Italian morning. 1823

Oil on canvas

Kunsthalle, Kiel, Germany

In 1825 the Russian public met with enthusiasm the first completed in Italy painting by Bryullov "Italian Morning" (1823, Kunsthalle, Kiel, Germany). The Society for the Encouragement of Artists presented it to Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, her husband Nicholas I expressed a desire to have a pair for her. Then Bryullov conceived the "Italian noon". 

Karl Bryullov  (1799–1852)
Italian noon (Italian woman picking grapes)

Oil on canvas

22 x 27

State Tretyakov Gallery

Both paintings make up a series. Here, for the first time, the artist's favorite type of slightly common southern female beauty appears. It is no coincidence that the Society for the Encouragement of Artists reacted rather coldly to the picture, to which the painter objected: "I decided to look for diversity in those forms of simple nature, which we often meet and often even more like than the strict beauty of statues" ... The version in the Tretyakov Gallery is more modest, conditional, the girl depicted rather resembles not a real peasant woman, but an ancient maenad, a companion of the god of winemaking Bacchus. More on this painting

Karl Bryullov  (1799–1852)

Hope feeding love, c. 1824

Oil on canvas

22 x 27

I have no further description, at this time

Karl Bryullov

In a Harem, c. 1823 - 1835

Oil, canvas

I have no further description, at this time

Karl Bryullov  (1799–1852)

Portrait of Countess Julia Pavlovna Samoilova moving away from the ball with her adopted daughter Amazilia Pacini (Masquerade), c. 1842

Oil on canvas

249 x 176 cm

The State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russian.

Countess Yuliya Pavlovna Samoylova was a granddaughter of Count Martyn Skavronskiy and the last scion of Skavronskiy family. She grew up in the house of Count Yuliy Litta due to early death of her mother. Samoylova became an owner of Grafskaya Slavyanka manor. On January 25, 1825 she married Count Nikolai Samoylov, but later divorced him as well as several other persons. Samoylova had strong affiliations with Karl Briullov, whose The Last Day of Pompeii (See below) among others shows the idealized figures of himself and Samoylova. In 1840 Samoylova sold Grafskaya Slavyanka and left Russia for Italy. She was buried at Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. More on Countess Yuliya Pavlovna Samoylova

BRYULLOV, Karl Pavlovich

Portrait of Princess Elezabeta Pavlovna Saltykova, c. 1841

Oil on canvas

200 x 142 cm

State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

Karl Bryullov  (1799–1852)

Horsewoman

Portrait of the pupils of Countess Y.P. Samoilova - Giovannina and Amatsilia

Oil on canvas

209.8 x 293

State Tretyakov Gallery

The sisters Giovannina and Amatsilia Pacini, pupils of Countess Y.P. Samoilova, are depicted. The eldest of the sisters abruptly stops the heated horse, but she herself remains absolutely calm. Wild power, subjugating fragile beauty, is one of the favorite motives of romanticism. The girl's face is perfect. The Italian type of appearance was considered perfect at the time of Bryullov, and the artist plays with it with pleasure. Refined play of colors, sparkling fabrics - every detail as if proclaims the magnificence of this "best of worlds". More on this painting

Karl Bryullov  (1799–1852)

The Fountain of Bakhchisarai, c. 1849

Oil on canvas

86.5 х 76 cm

Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts

The Fountain of Bakhchisaray is a poem by Alexander Pushkin, written during the years 1821 to 1823.

Pushkin began writing The Fountain of Bakhchisaray after having visited The Fountain of Tears at the Khan Palace in a town in central Crimea in 1820. More on The Fountain of Bakhchisarai

Karl Pavlovich Briullov

Scene from Willhelm Meister's Apprenticeship

Watercolour over pencil on paper

Private collection

Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship is the second novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, published in 1795–96.

The eponymous hero undergoes a journey of self-realization. The story centers upon Wilhelm's attempt to escape what he views as the empty life of a bourgeois businessman. After a failed romance with the theater, Wilhelm commits himself to the mysterious Tower Society. More on Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship

Karl Bryullov  (1799–1852)

Herminia at the shepherds

Based on the story of Torquato Tasso's poem "Jerusalem Liberated" 

Oil on canvas

138.2 x 99

State Tretyakov Gallery

Young Herminia, daughter of the Saracen king, in love with a Christian knight, went to seek his beloved for war, fearing for his life. Dressed in armor, she suddenly heard the magical sounds of the pipe - the old shepherd was playing. Following the wonderful sounds, Herminia came to the old hut, where she saw a family of shepherds weaving baskets. Noticing the girl in military uniform, the old shepherd began to convince her of the charms of a secluded quiet, and most importantly, peaceful life. 

Despite all the harmony of the picture, it was never finished by the painter - the master's fascinating nature drove him forward, forcing him to start new subjects. More on this painting

Jerusalem Liberated is an epic poem by the Italian poet Torquato Tasso, first published in 1581, that tells a largely mythified version of the First Crusade in which Christian knights, led by Godfrey of Bouillon, battle Muslims in order to take Jerusalem. More on Jerusalem Liberated

After distinguishing himself as a promising and imaginative student and finishing his education, he left Russia for Rome where he worked until 1835 as a portraitist and genre painter, though his fame as an artist came when he began doing historical painting.

Karl Bryullov  (1799–1852)

Invasion of Henzerich on Rome

Oil on canvas

118.6 x 88.5

State Tretyakov Gallery

Henzerich, the king of the Germanic tribe of the Vandals, in 455 attacked Rome and subjected the city to a fourteen-day sack, as a result of which he consolidated his power in the Western Mediterranean. 

In this interpretation of the plot - Hanzerich orders his African assistants to seize the Dowager Empress Eudoxia and her daughters - speaks of the artist's acquaintance with Nikolai Gogol's article "On the Movement of Nations at the End of the 5th Century", which was part of the writer's collection "Arabesques" (1835). In the depths - a group of vandals is dragging as a trophy a seven-branched candlestick from the Jerusalem temple, taken out in 70 during the sack of the city by the Romans. On the right is a man dressed as a priest, possibly Pope Leo I the Great. Bryullov conceived the painting back in Italy, but he painted the sketch by order of A.A. Perovsky (writer Anthony Pogorelsky) already in Moscow, where A.S. Pushkin. The poet wrote to his wife: "... Perovsky showed me the Taking of Rome by Genseric (which is worth the Last Day of Pompeii), saying: ... How could he, this pig, express his canal, brilliant thought, he is a scoundrel, a beast. ... Scream". More on this painting

Karl Bryullov  (1799–1852)

Siege of Pskov by the Polish king Stephen Bathory in 1581, c. 1843

Oil on canvas

482 x 675 cm

Russian Museum

The siege of Pskov, known as the Pskov Defense in Russia, took place between August 1581 and February 1582, when the army of the Polish king and Grand Duke of Lithuania Stephen Báthory laid an unsuccessful siege and successful blockade of the city of Pskov during the final stage of the Livonian War of 1558–1583. 

The Pskovian garrison undertook frequent sallies. There were 31 attacks by Polish troops during the five-month siege. The siege dragged on, with neither side able to end it; in the meantime diplomatic negotiations, in which the Vatican became involved, led to the end of hostilities. More on Siege of Pskov

Soon after his arrival in the capital of Russia, Bryullov started the Siege of Pskov commissioned by Nicholas I. The work on the picture lasted for many years. But in 1843 he abandoned the painting never to return to it. The failure may partly be accounted for by the general crisis of Russian historical painting, and to the end of his life Bryullov never worked with historical subjects. More on this painting

Karl Bryullov  (1799–1852)

The Last Day of Pompeii, c. (1830 - 1833)

Oil on canvas

Height: 456.5 cm (14.9 ft); Width: 651 cm (21.3 ft)

Russian Museum

The picture shows the  eruption of Vesuvius on August 24, 79 AD . A visit by the painter to Pompeii in 1827 is clearly documented. He was so impressed by the Via dei Sepolcri that he decided to capture the events in a painting. Letters suggest that Brjullow had read Pliny the Younger's eyewitness account and used it as a model for the painting.

Karl Bryullov  (1799–1852)

A Turkish Girl

Oil on canvas

79.8 x 66.2

State Tretyakov Gallery

In 1835 Bryullov took part in the "artistic and literary expedition" organized by Count V.P. Orlov-Davydov to the Ionian Islands and Asia Minor, but in Athens he fell ill and was forced to go to Constantinople, and from there to Russia. The artist stayed in Turkey for more than three months. The works of this period are distinguished by the vitality of the episodes, the accuracy of the characteristics, the gentle humor, the subtle perception of the national flavor. In the works performed upon his return to Russia, among them "The Turkish Woman", and painted according to old impressions, oriental exoticism comes to the fore. A young woman languidly, relaxed reclining on the sofa, motley embroidered clothes set off her "non-European" beauty. The glowing background sharpens the feeling of bliss and sensuality that fills the picture. More on this painting

His best-known work, The Last Day of Pompeii (1830–1833) (See above), is a vast composition compared by Pushkin and Gogol to the best works of Rubens and Van Dyck. It created a sensation in Italy and established Bryullov as one of the finest European painters of his day. After completing this work, he triumphantly returned to the Russian capital, where he made many friends among the aristocracy and intellectual elite and obtained a high post in the Imperial Academy of Arts.

Karl Bryullov  (1799–1852)

Bathsheba

Oil on canvas

126.5 x 175 

State Tretyakov Gallery

The plot is borrowed from the 2nd Book of Kings of the Old Testament . Bathsheba is the wife of the commander Uriah, who served King David. David saw Bathsheba while bathing and ordered to send Uriah to certain death, after which he took Bathsheba to his palace. As a punishment for this sin, David's firstborn died on the seventh day. Bryullov is interested not so much in the plot as in the ancient oriental culture, its spicy beauty. The motif - a naked body illuminated by the sun - allowed the artist to show off his decorative gift. The heroine's face remains in shadow, but the silhouette is highlighted, which creates the feeling of living flesh; colored reflections are scattered here and there on the canvas. The marble whiteness of the skin is set off by the figure of a black servant. More on this painting

Karl Bryullov  (1799–1852)

St. Alexandra, c. 1845

 Holy Queen Alexandra, Ascended to Heaven

Oil on canvas

State Museum-Reserve Tsarskoe Selo, Pushkin

Saint Alexandra was the reputed wife of Emperor Diocletian and secretly converted to Christianity. Jacobus de Voragine listing her name as “Alexandria” describes her as the wife of Dacian, the Roman Prefect who persecuted Saint Caprasius of Agen and Saint Maginus. While Saint George was being tortured, Alexandra went to the arena, bowed before him, and professed her faith openly. When she questioned whether she was worthy of paradise and martyrdom without being baptized, Saint George told her, “Do not fear, for your blood will baptize you.” She was denounced as a Christian and imprisoned on her husband's orders in Nicomedia, then sentenced to death.

Her husband was so outraged by her conversion that he is said to have uttered, “What! Even thou hast fallen under their spell!”. Alexandra quietly accepted her sentence and prayed as the guards walked her to the place of execution. She asked if she could rest for a moment. The guards allowed this. She rested by the place of Saint George's execution at Nicomedia's City Wall. More on St. Alexandra

Karl Bryullov  (1799–1852)

 Nuns of the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Rome, singing at the organ, c.  1849  

Oil on canvas

I have no further description, at this time

While teaching at the academy (1836–1848) he developed a portrait style which combined a neoclassical simplicity with a romantic tendency that fused well, and his penchant for realism was satisfied with an intriguing level of psychological penetration. While he was working on the ceiling of St Isaac's Cathedral, his health suddenly deteriorated. Following advice of his doctors, Bryullov left Russia for Madeira in 1849 and spent the last three years of his life in Italy. He died in the village of Manziana near Rome and is buried at the Cimitero Acattolico there. More on Karl Bryullov

Please visit my other blogs: Art Collector, Mythology, Marine Art, Portrait of a Lady, The Orientalist, Art of the Nude and The Canals of Venice, Middle East Artists, 365 Saints and 365 Days, also visit my Boards on Pinterest

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