• This symbolistic painting is a self-portrait executed in 1872 by the Swiss symbolist artist Arnold Böcklin. He first exhibited at the Kunstverein München in the same year, establishing his reputation in Munich’s artistic community. It is now in the Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin. 

    Painted in Munich, the painting depicts a bearded Böcklin stalked by a personification of death playing a single-stringed violin in an intimation of his mortality. Death and mortality are a repeating theme in several of Böcklin’s works, including Plague, two versions of War, and five versions of Isle of the Dead.

    According to Alma Mahler, the wife of the composer Gustav Mahler, her husband was “under the spell” of Böcklin’s self-portrait when writing the scherzo movement of his Fourth Symphony.

  • Judith Beheading Holofernes is a baroque-style painting of the biblical episode by Caravaggio, in which the widow Judith stayed with the Assyrian general Holofernes in his tent after a banquet and then decapitated him after he passed out drunk. The exhibition catalog (Skira, 2018, p88) also cites biographer artist Giovanni Baglione’s account that Genoa banker Ottavio Costa commissioned the work.

    The deuterocanonical Book of Judith tells how Judith served her people by seducing and pleasuring Holofernes, the Syrian General. Judith gets Holofernes drunk, then seizes her sword and slays him: “Approaching to his bed, she took hold of the hair of his head” (Judith 13:7–8).

    Currently located at the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica at Palazzo Barberini, Rome, the artwork is the most pivotal part of the Book of Judith. It depicts a socially liberated woman who punishes masculine wrongdoing.”

  • The Mona Lisa is a half-length portrait by Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci. Considered an archetypal masterpiece of the Italian Renaissance, viewed as “the best known, most visited, most written about, most sung about, and most parodied work of art in the world.” Its novel qualities include the subject’s enigmatic expression, the subtle modeling of forms, and atmospheric illusionism. 

    Identified to depict Italian noblewoman Lisa Gherardini, the wife of Francesco del Giocondo. He painted it in oil on a white Lombardy poplar panel. Leonardo never gave the painting to the Giocondo family, and later it is believed he left it in his will to his favored apprentice Salaì. Acquired by King Francis of France and is permanently displayed at the Louvre in Paris in 1797.

  • Appraised at $650 million dollars, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (French: Un dimanche après-midi à l'Île de la Grande Jatte) is Georges Seurat's most famous work. Executed on a large canvas, it is a founding work of the neo-impressionist movement. Seurat’s composition includes several Parisians at a park on the banks of the River Seine. It is in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago.

    Seurat’s painting was a mirror impression of his painting, Bathers at Asnières, completed shortly before, in 1884. Whereas it is doused in light, almost every figure on La Grande Jatte appears to be cast in shadow, under trees, an umbrella, or another person.

    In 1923, Frederic Bartlett was appointed trustee of the Art Institute of Chicago. He and his second wife, Helen Birch Bartlett, loaned their collection of French Post-Impressionist and Modernist art to the museum.

  • This painting by German-American artist Emanuel Leutze commemorates General George Washington’s crossing of the Delaware River with the Continental Army on December 25–26, 1776, during the American Revolutionary War. That action was the first move in a surprise attack and victory against Hessian forces at the Battle of Trenton in New Jersey on 26 December.

    The flag depicted is an early version of the flag of the United States (the “Stars and Stripes”), the design of which did not exist at the time of Washington’s crossing. The flag’s design was first specified on the 14 June 1777, Flag Resolution of the Second Continental Congress. It flew for the first time on 3 September 1777, well after Washington’s crossing in 1776.

    The original was part of the collection at the Kunsthalle in Bremen, Germany, and was destroyed in a bombing raid in 1942 during World War II. Leutze painted two more versions, with the smaller version of the two, which was auctioned this year and sold for $43 million.

  • The Death of Adonis is a 1512 Italian renaissance oil on canvas painting by Sebastiano del Piombo, now in the Uffizi in Florence. It was produced initially for Agostino Chigi just after the artist’s arrival in Rome, summoned to assist Chigi in decorating the Villa Chigi. A 1520 inventory of the villa stated it contained “figures of more nude and beautiful women.” The work arrived in Florence in 1587 and was held at the Palazzo Pitti.

  • This painting by Leonardo da Vinci represents the scene of the Last Supper of Jesus with the Twelve Apostles, as it is told in the Gospel of John – specifically, the moment after Jesus announces that one of his apostles will betray him. This high renaissance artwork is one of the Western world’s most recognizable paintings and among Leonardo’s most celebrated works.

    The work was commissioned as part of a plan of renovations to the church and its convent buildings by Leonardo’s patron Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan.

  • Nighthawks is a 1942 American realism oil on canvas painting by Edward Hopper that portrays four people in a downtown diner late at night as viewed through the diner’s large glass window. The light coming from the restaurant illuminates a darkened and deserted urban streetscape.

    It has been described as Hopper’s best-known work and is one of the most recognizable paintings in American art. It is suggested that Hopper was inspired by a short story of Ernest Hemingway’s, either “The Killers” (1927), which Hopper greatly admired, or the more philosophical “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” (1933). 

    The scene was supposedly inspired by a diner (since demolished) in Greenwich Village, Hopper’s neighborhood in Manhattan. Hopper said the painting “was suggested by a restaurant on Greenwich Avenue where two streets meet”. Additionally, he noted that “I simplified the scene a great deal and made the restaurant bigger”.

  • ***AUG 22 RELEASE DATE*** Girl with a Pearl Earring (Dutch: Meisje met de Parel) is an oil painting by Dutch Golden Age painter Johannes Vermeer. Going by various names over the centuries, it became known by its present title towards the end of the 20th century after the earring worn by the girl portrayed there. The work has been in the collection of the Mauritshuis in The Hague since 1902. 

    The work is oil on canvas and is signed “IVMeer” but not dated. It is estimated to have been painted around 1665. After the most recent restoration of the painting in 1994, the subtle color scheme and the intimacy of the girl’s gaze toward the viewer have been greatly enhanced.

  • The Night Watch (Dutch: De Nachtwacht), is a 1642 painting by Rembrandt van Rijn. It is in the collection of the Amsterdam Museum but is prominently displayed on a permanent loan to the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, and is the best-known painting in its collection. The Night Watch is one of the most famous Dutch Golden Age paintings.

    He was known for the dramatic use of light and shadow (tenebrism) and motion perception in what would have traditionally been a static military group portrait. The painting was commissioned around 1639 by Captain Banning Cocq and seventeen members of his Kloveniers (civic militia guards). The artistic work was completed in 1642, at the peak of the Dutch Golden Age. 

    It depicts the eponymous company moving out, led by Captain Frans Banning Cocq (dressed in black, with a red sash) and his lieutenant, Willem van Ruytenburch (dressed in yellow, with a white sash). With effective use of sunlight and shade, Rembrandt leads the eye to the three most important characters among the crowd: the two men in the center (from whom the painting gets its original title) and the woman in the center-left background carrying a chicken. 

  • St. Francis in Ecstasy (or St. Francis in the Desert) is a painting by Italian Renaissance master Giovanni Bellini, started in 1475 and completed around 1480. Bellini depicted the religious figure of St. Francis of Assisi in a landscape. The painting portrays Francis of Assisi, the Italian saint of the early 13th century, in an Italian landscape, stepping out in the sun from his cave, his figure anchoring the creamy celadon and golden-green landscape.

    Bellini became sophisticated in his painting skill in the fifteenth century, the culmination of which is Saint Francis In Ecstasy. The moment is depicted in the painting is Saint Francis’s stigmatization on the mountain of La Verna. Bellini envisioned the stigmatization as a moment of human transformation into the divine.[7] The sun’s rays shine on St. Francis, symbolizing him as a Seraph-Crucifix in front of the sun, which indicates the suffering image of the Seraphim.

  • The Art of Painting, also known as The Allegory of Painting, or Painter in his Studio, is a 17th-century oil on canvas painting by Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer. Owned by the Austrian Republic and is displayed in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.

    Many art historians think it is an allegory of painting, hence the alternative title. Its composition and iconography make it the most complex Vermeer work, making it his second-largest work.

    This canvas depicts an artist painting a woman dressed in blue posing as a model in his studio. Standing by a window and a large map of the Low Countries hangs on the wall behind. Signed to the right of the girl “I [Oannes] Ver. Meer”, but not dated. Most experts assume he executed it sometime between 1665/1668, but some suggest he could have created it as late as 1670–1675. The painting has only two figures, the painter and his subject, a woman with downcast eyes. Thought to be a self-portrait of the artist, some have suggested the young woman could be his daughter.

  • This intimate portrayal of Joseph demonstrates Reni’s skill through his rendering of the foster father of Christ as a simple man tenderly holding his infant son. The fruit held by infant Jesus reminds us of the fall of man in Eden and the fruitfulness of redemption through the advent of Christianity.

    He was the most famous Italian painter of his day, revered for the grace and naturalness of his serenely balanced compositions. Even referred to as “the divine Guido.”

    Working during the Catholic Counter-Reformation in the seventeenth century, Reni depicted images of saints and holy figures in the humanized and accessible form Catholic leaders required. This intimate portrayal of Joseph demonstrates Reni’s skill through his rendering of the foster father of Christ as a simple man tenderly holding his infant son. 

  • The Birth of Venus is an early renaissance oil on canvas painting by the Italian artist Sandro Botticelli, executed during the mid-1480s. It depicts the goddess Venus arriving at the shore after her birth, when she had emerged from the sea fully grown (called Venus Anadyomene and often expressed in art). The painting is in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy. 

    As a depiction of a subject from classical mythology on a vast scale, The Birth of Venus was virtually unprecedented in Western art since classical antiquity, as was the size and prominence of a nude female figure in the Birth. It was thought that it was commissioned by the same member of the Medici family.

  • The Creation of Adam is a fresco painting by Italian artist Michelangelo valued at 300 million dollars, which forms part of the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling, painted c. 1508–1512. It shows the Biblical creation narrative from the Book of Genesis in which God gives life to Adam, the first man. Part of a complex iconographic scheme, and chronologically fourth in a series of panels portraying episodes from Genesis.

    Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam is one of the most replicated religious artwork. In 1505, the newly elected Pope Julius II invited Michelangelo back to Rome. He was commissioned to build the Pope’s tomb, which was to include forty statues and be finished in five years. It took him 40 years to complete, and even then, it was still not completed to his satisfaction. During the same time, Michelangelo painted the Sistine chapel in 4 years.

  • The Kiss (in German Der Kuss) is an oil-on-canvas painting with added gold leaf, silver, and platinum by the Austrian Symbolist painter Gustav Klimt. It was painted between 1907 and 1908, during the height of what scholars call his “Golden Period.” It was exhibited in 1908 under Liebespaar (the lovers), as stated in the exhibition catalog. Love, intimacy, and sexuality are common themes in Gustav Klimt’s works.

    The painting depicts a couple embracing each other, their bodies entwined in elaborate, beautiful robes that were decorated in style influenced by the contemporary Art Nouveau style and the organic forms of the earlier Arts and Crafts movement. The painting now hangs in the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere museum in the Belvedere.

  • The Ambassadors is an oil on canvas painting of 1533 by Hans Holbein the Younger. Also known as Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve, it was created in the Tudor period, in the same year Elizabeth I was born. Speculations would suggest that Elizabeth’s mother, Anne Boleyn, then Queen of England, might have commissioned the painting as a gift for ambassador Jean de Dinteville, who is portrayed on the left in the painting. As well as being a double portrait, the artwork contains a still life of several meticulously rendered objects, the meaning of which is the cause of much debate. It incorporates a much-cited example of anamorphisms in painting. This painting displays the influence Early Netherlandish painting had on Holbein.

    The most notable and famous of Holbein’s symbols in his work is the distorted skull placed in the bottom center of the composition. The skull, rendered in anamorphic perspective, another invention of the Early Renaissance, is meant to be a visual puzzle as the viewer must approach the painting from high on the right side or low on the left side to see the form as an accurate rendering of a human skull.

    The Ambassadors has rested in London’s National Gallery collection since its purchase in 1890.

  • Liberty Leading the People is a painting by Eugène Delacroix honoring the July Revolution of 1830, which toppled King Charles X of France. A woman of the people with a Phrygian cap personifying the concept of Liberty leads a varied group of people forward over a barricade and the bodies of the fallen. She is holding the flag of the French Revolution – the tricolor, which again became France’s national flag after these events – in one hand and wielding a bayonetted musket with the other. The figure of Liberty is also viewed as an emblem of France and the French Republic, known as Marianne. The artwork is sometimes wrongly thought to depict the French Revolution of 1789. Delacroix depicted Liberty as a symbolic goddess figure and a vigorous woman of the people. The mound of corpses, and wreckage acts as a kind of pedestal from which Liberty strides, barefoot and bare-breasted, out of the canvas and into the viewer’s space.

    Delacroix painted his work in the autumn of 1830. In a letter to his brother dated 21 October, he wrote: “My bad mood is vanishing thanks to hard work. I’ve embarked on a modern subject—a barricade. And if I haven’t fought for my country at least, I’ll paint for her.” Liberty Leading the People is exhibited in the Louvre in Paris.

  • Artist: Haim Sherrf Medium: Oil on Canvas Size: 30"/40" Year Created: 2009 *The artwork includes a certificate of authenticity (COA).*
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    The Golden City by Haim Sherrf

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    Artist: Haim Sherrf Medium: Oil on Canvas Size: 30"/36" Year Created: 2009 *The artwork includes a certificate of authenticity (COA).*
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    The Burning Bush by Haim Sherrf

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    Artist: Haim Sherrf Medium: Oil on Canvas Size: 36"/48" Year Created: 2009 *The artwork includes a certificate of authenticity (COA).*
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    The Kingdom by Haim Sherrf

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    Artist: Haim Sherrf Medium: Oil on Canvas Size: 30"/40" Year Created: 2009 *The artwork includes a certificate of authenticity (COA).*
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