Art

This flirtatious duo in classicizing dress, painted with notable technical finesse, reflects Cot’s allegiance to the academic style of his teachers, including Bouguereau and Cabanel. Exhibited at the Salon of 1873, the picture was Cot’s greatest success, widely admired and copied in engravings, fans, porcelains, and tapestries. Its first owner, hardware tycoon John Wolfe, awarded the work a prime spot in his Manhattan mansion, where visitors delighted in "this reveling pair of children, drunken with first love ... this Arcadian idyll, peppered with French spice."

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In the late 1950s Arbus created a little-known body of work in and around the movie houses of Times Square. Around this time, she also photographed such amusement parks as Coney Island and Disneyland, temples of illusion that offered a kind of ready-made American mythology. In these mass entertainments, Arbus first discerned elements of the fantastic and grotesque that she would later unearth throughout American society in her celebrated portraits of sideshow performers, nudists, and transvestites. This darkly funny picture also prefigures the work of artists of the 1980s who examined the strategies and effects of media imagery. Screaming woman with blood on her hands, Diane Arbus (American, New York 1923–1971 New York), Gelatin silver print This image cannot be enlarged, viewed at full screen, or downloaded.

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Flayed alive after losing a musical contest to the god Apollo, the satyr Marsyas screams in the midst of his torture. Every aspect of the figure, from squinting eyes to torn tongue and flamelike hair, contributes to this image of torment. Early in his career, the sculptor Permoser worked in Florence, where this bust likely was carved. It is his personal response to Gianlorenzo Bernini's dramatic style, especially the Damned Soul of about 1619 (Palazzo di Spagna, Rome). While important sculptures by Pietro and Gianlorenzo Bernini are represented in the Museum's collection, Marsyas is our first work by Permoser, who helped to transmit the Italian Baroque style to Germany when he returned to his native Dresden.

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In this landmark of neoclassical painting from just before the French Revolution, David took up a classical story of resisting unjust authority in a sparse, friezelike composition. The Greek philosopher Socrates (469–399 BCE) was convicted of impiety by the Athenian courts; rather than renounce his beliefs, he died willingly, expounding on the immortality of the soul before drinking poisonous hemlock. Through a network of gestures and expressions, David’s figures act out the last moments of Socrates’s life. He is about to grasp the cup of hemlock, offered by a disciple who cannot bear to witness the event. David consulted antiquarian scholars to create an archeologically exacting image, including details of furniture and clothing. His inclusion of Plato at the foot of the bed, however, deliberately references not someone present at Socrates’s death but rather the author whose text, Phaedo, preserved this ancient story.

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This series is a groundbreaking moment in scientific and photographic history: the first color portrait of a living human embryo inside its mother’s womb!!!

Created using a specially designed wide-angle lens and a micro flash attached to a surgical scope, these images capture the 15-week-old embryo in remarkable clarity. The project documents the stages of prenatal life with unexpected beauty.

Samuel Colt (1814–1862) was one of the most famous and successful American inventors and entrepreneurs of the early industrial age. By patenting the first mass-produced multishot revolving firearms, Colt achieved worldwide fame and a vast personal fortune. His introduction of precise machine-made weapons and his promotion of the interchangeability of parts were innovations that transformed the arms industry. Colt actively promoted sales through advertising and displays at international fairs, and by presenting deluxe arms to men of influence. His precise and reliable standard-model revolvers were highly valued by soldiers and frontiersmen. His more elaborately embellished exhibition and presentation arms appealed as functional objects of beauty.

Early American arms usually were plain, serviceable weapons intended for hunting and self-defense. By the mid-nineteenth century, however, the increasing wealth and sophistication of the middle class created a new demand for decorated arms. English and German designs initially served as models for American arms decoration. A new era of creativity began with the arrival of German-born gun engravers and die-cutters, who joined Colt's engraving staff at the Hartford, Connecticut factory beginning in about 1853. In addition to embellishing standard models, these engravers created some of Colt's most lavish and ambitious gold-inlaid arms, which were intended for promotional display or for presentation to influential citizens, politicians, and heads of state. The finest decorated Colt revolvers typically have blued steel surfaces deeply engraved with dense foliate scrollwork, with motifs such as human figures, animals and birds, and invariably, Colt's name inlaid in gold set flush with the surface. On the most luxurious examples, some of the gold was modeled in relief, resembling sculpture in miniature.

This Dragoon model revolver and its mate (presented to the Czar of Russia) are considered among Colt's masterpieces. Apparently, they were created as part of a set of three pairs of gold-inlaid revolvers that Colt took with him to Europe in 1854. That year saw the outbreak of the Crimean War, which pitted Russia against Turkey and her allies, Great Britain and France. Colt aggressively marketed arms to both sides. In November 1854, he presented three gold-inlaid revolvers, one example from each pair, to Czar Nicholas I of Russia. Of these, the Third Model Dragoon serial number 12407 (now in The Hermitage, Saint Petersburg) is actually the mate to the Museum’s pistol, serial number 12406. The gift clearly demonstrated the technical and artistic aspects of Colt’s product, while its patriotic motifs proudly proclaimed its American origin. The museum's pistol features a portrait of George Washington and the Arms of the United States, while on the Czar's pistol there are a view of America's capitol building and a personification of American industry.

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On the advice of the French painter Charles-François Daubigny, Claude Monet traveled to the Netherlands in 1871, where he painted this landscape of limpid waters and azure skies along the Achterzaan River in Zaandam. Writing to fellow Impressionist Camille Pissarro, Monet noted the pleasures of painting the picturesque Dutch landscape: "This is a superb place for painting. There are the most amusing things everywhere: hundreds of windmills and enchanting boats, extremely friendly Dutchmen…" Using a limited palette of varying shades of green, Monet has captured the hazy atmosphere and light-dappled water of this picturesque Dutch port. Monet's Dutch landscapes were widely admired by other contemporary artists, especially Daubigny, whose own studies of light and water share an affinity.

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The hull of this sailing ship comprises the names of the Seven Sleepers and their dog. The tale of the Seven Sleepers, found in pre-Islamic Christian sources, concerns a group of men who sleep for centuries within a cave, protected by God from religious persecution. Both hadith (sayings of the Prophet), and tafsir (commentaries on the Qur'an) suggest that these verses from the Qur'an have protective qualities.

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The Devi is in the centre and around it seem to be kings in Timurid dress. But i doubt they would have depicted Mughal Emperors alongside the Devi. Are the figures Marathas with a Chattra?

My take:

All the iconography outside the inner circle looks very Muslim to me. Maybe its an outlier in the artistic tradition?

Theres certainly mughal kings around Hindu deities in other art. For example infamous painting of Somaprabha and a celestial nymph listening to music. From the Kathasaritsagara. In this piece the kings observe them from the sidelines.

They also seem to be creating a halo behind each figure which Muslims borrowed from the Christian tradition. And that seems to be the case for the devi too! The combination of the three makes me think it just has to be the mughals.

But i certainly can't recognise them as any of the famous mughals, perhaps some of the lesser depicted people? Perhaps fictional or historical characters. They loved the hamzanama for example. (Although I don't think these are characters from the hamzanama obviously.)

It seems to me to be squarely in the tradition of visual statements of syncretic legitimacy.

Maybe they aren’t portraits of specific emperors. By the 19th century, “Mughal-style noble” was a generic emblem of rulership — much like how European painters used “Roman togas” for abstract virtues.

The artist likely composed idealized “kings” paying homage to the Devi.

The more I think the more options I see with little certainty of what's right.

In this painting, attributed to the Mughal artist Payag, a demonic form of the Hindu goddess Bhairavi, female counterpart to Shiva, sits on the body of a decomposing corpse. Wearing jewelry and a skirt made of skulls, and horns in the form of spear heads, she is accompanied by Shiva who appears in the form of a devotee. Three of her hands carry symbols of destruction, while her fourth extends a gesture of blessing. The borders, executed in gold monochrome, form a continuation of the desolate landscape in the painting itself. The inscription above the image, written in Devanagari script, identifies the figure as Bhairavi.

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Based on a bet with Queen Marie Antoinette, King Louis XVI’s brother, the comte d’Artois, had a pleasure pavilion built on the outskirts of Paris in a mere sixty-four days through the labor of more than eight hundred craftsmen. Robert’s six paintings of Italian landscapes were installed in an elaborate bathing room, prompting their overarching theme of water. Having spent eleven years in Italy, where he befriended Jean Honoré Fragonard and other French artists abroad, Robert knew ancient architecture and sculpture deeply. In this series, however, instead of antiquarian exactitude, he combined sources freely.

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