Unknown

Jesus and Saint John the Baptist

18th century

In the mid-18th century, Bénard was famous for his genre paintings, portraits and landscapes. Drawing on Jean-Antoine Watteau’s sense of poetry and Jean –Honoré Fragonard’s use of...

Painted in the style of the 17th century Dutch painter Alexander Andrienssen, this painting is of a glass vase on a wood surface filled with flowers. The artist's careful attention ...

Hercules and Omphale Oil on panel, 52 x 41 cm According to legend, Hercules had to make atonement and became a slave to the Lydian queen Omphale. When she found out who her slave was, she married him. Falling for his mistress and made effeminate by the luxury of court life, the former hero allowed himself to become the laughing stock of the court. He dressed in women's clothes, spun wool and did other women's work, whereas Omphale wore his lion's skin and carried a wooden club. When the time of punishment was over, the hero realised his delusion and left Omphale. So far, the painting could not be clearly assigned to an artist. Nevertheless, it impresses with its fluid and convincing painting, whose colourfulness and conception are reminiscent of the Prague School around Bartholomäus Spranger. This work follows an engraving and an etching made by Michel Dorigny in 1643 after a design by Simon Vouet. It shows the same scene but the print differs in minor details from the present painting (see e.g. the head of the lion) and the treatment of the faces seems to be painted more detailed and refined. So far there is no painting...

This beautiful 18th century Italian Old Master oil painting is something rather special. Painted circa 1750 the subject matter is Saint John the Baptist as a very young child. He is ...