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This is a late example, very conservative in painting style, of a type of image that was first developed in Russia in the late 16th century. It is primarily based on the Old Testament story in which God revealed himself to Moses in a bush that burned without being consumed by the fire. The Burning Bush was used as a metaphor for the Virgin Mary, who gave birth to a child while retaining her virginity. The Virgin and Christ Child in the center of the panel are surrounded by the symbols of the four evangelists and by angels whom Mary, as the Queen of Heaven, commands. These angels, as the accompanying inscriptions explain, hold sway over various natural elements: wind, fire, ice, darkness, etc. (cf. Hebrews 1:7). Four Old Testament scenes in the corners prophetically refer to the Incarnation: Moses before the burning bush (Exodus 3:2), Isaiah's vision of a cherub holding a coal with tongs (Isaiah 6:6), Ezekiel's vision of a shut door through which the Lord alone can enter (Ezekiel 44:2), and Jacob's dream of a ladder leading to heaven (Genesis 28:12-13). In the frame below is the Virgin's ancestor Jesse, father of King David.

Russian

 

H: 14 3/16 x W: 12 3/16 x D: 1 1/2 in. (36 x 31 x 3.8 cm)

medium: tempera and gold on wood

culture: Russian

dynasty: House of Romanov

 

Walters Art Museum, 1972, by gift.

art.thewalters.org/detail/6972

A woman dressed in the simple cotton clothes of a farmer is carrying a tray of rice cakes and the rest of a meal wrapped in a decorative cloth. The tool on her back is used to cut mature rice stalks.

Japanese

 

14 3/4 x 10 1/16 in. (37.4 x 25.5 cm)

medium: mulberry paper, pigments

style: Katsukawa School

culture: Japanese

 

given to Walters Art Museum, 1991.

art.thewalters.org/detail/9119

Medieval medicine offered few cures. Christians focused their hopes for recovery from illness or accident on their prayers to saints to intercede for them with God. Saints Cosmas and Damian, Protasius and Gervasius, were two pairs of twin brothers who were invoked for their healing of the sick. The statues are from the hospital complex at Abbeville, built between 1484 and 1492, where they may have stood in niches at the entrance to the church.

 

The vigorous modeling and realistic details- as in the variety in their facial expressions- are made more vivid by the use of color and give credibility to the saints' humanity. Their size, relative to the sick at their feet, conveys their superhuman powers, while the clerical garments lend them authority. The stocky proportions are typical of French sculpture of the late 15th century.

 

Saint Cosmas, gloves in hand, heals a man with a bloated stomach. It is likely that he originally held a vessel in his left hand. Cosmas and Damian were twin brothers who, according to legend, practiced as doctors in Cilicia in Asia Minor. They are said to have refused all payment in order to convert their patients. They were martyred in the 3rd century and are regarded as patrons of doctors and surgeons. See 27. 282, 284, 285.

French

 

H: 27 9/16 x W: 11 7/16 x D: 8 3/4 in. (70 x 29 x 22.3 cm)

medium: limestone with traces of paint and gilding

style: Gothic

culture: French

 

Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.

art.thewalters.org/detail/10259

Gleyre claimed that "Lost Illusions" represented a vision that he had experienced on the evening of March 1, 1835, while sitting on the banks of the Nile River near Abydos, Egypt. An aging poet watches pensively as a mysterious boat carries away his youthful dreams and illusions, personified by music-making maidens and a cupid strewing flowers. Although the figures in the painting wear classical Greek dress, their vessel resembles a "dahabieh," an Egyptian river boat.

 

In 1843, Gleyre succeeded Paul Delaroche as the head of the major private studio in Paris. His pupils included such diverse figures as the Academic artist Jean-Léon Gérôme, the future Impressionists Alfred Sisley and Auguste Renoir (1841-1919), and the American James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1904). This painting, begun by Gleyre's pupil Léon Dussart and reworked by Gleyre himself, replicates Gleyre's masterpiece "Le Soir" (now in the Louvre Museum, Paris). William Walters commissioned this painting from the artist through the Parisian art dealers Goupil & Cie. in 1865. It took two years to complete. Conscious of the delay, the firm wrote to Walters:

 

Mr. Gleyre has finally nearly finished his reproduction of his picture. . . We are happy to be able to tell you that this reproduction is beautifully done. It has taken a long time and has required more trouble from the painter than he thought.

 

H: 34 1/16 x W: 59 1/4 in. (86.5 x 150.5 cm)

Framed H: 52 1/4 x W: 77 1/2 x D: 7 1/4 in. (132.7 x 196.9 x 18.4 cm)

medium: oil on canvas

 

Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.

art.thewalters.org/detail/2336

Extracts from Alfred Jacob Miller’s original text, which accompanied his images of Native Americans, are included below for reference. These words, which shaped how Miller’s contemporaries viewed the watercolors, reveal the racism and sexism embedded in 19th-century exploration and colonization of the western part of what is today the United States.

 

"The scene depicts one of the crossings, and not a favorable one. The water is deep and Bull boats must be resorted to. The Trapper in the foreground looking back at the approaching Caravan is waiting for orders, while others are testing the depth of the river by swimming across with faint hopes of any fording that will answer so as to avoid the construction of boats. The preparation of the latter loses much time,- sufficient Buffalo must be killed at once to furnish the hides, and while one party is in search of these, another is removing the goods from the larger wagons and taking the bodies from the wheels;- hides are sewed and streched over them, and the contents of all the other vehicles transferred,- the boats are then floated over by the men wading and swimming along-side. Canadian Trappers display wonderful good nature on such occasions, singing their simple French songs;- but when any fighting is to be done, the Kentuckian and Missourian take precedence by long odds." A.J. Miller, extracted from "The West of Alfred Jacob Miller" (1837).

 

In July 1858 William T. Walters commissioned 200 watercolors at twelve dollars apiece from Baltimore born artist Alfred Jacob Miller. These paintings were each accompanied by a descriptive text, and were delivered in installments over the next twenty-one months and ultimately were bound in three albums. Transcriptions of field-sketches drawn during the 1837 expedition that Miller had undertaken to the annual fur-trader's rendezvous in the Green River Valley (in what is now western Wyoming), these watercolors are a unique record of the closing years of the western fur trade.

 

H: 9 1/8 x W: 12 15/16 in. (23.2 x 32.9 cm)

medium: watercolor on paper

 

Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.

art.thewalters.org/detail/6063

This manuscript was illuminated by a circle of at least five highly organized manuscript painters active in the Flemish cities of Ghent and Bruges. The principal illuminator was Alexander Bening, who painted the majority of the book's miniatures. Manuscripts produced by this circle of artists are renowned for the decoration of their borders, which typically feature a rich variety of realistically-painted flowers, birds, and butterflies. This prayer book, called a book of hours, was intended not for a cleric, but for the private devotions of a lay person-in this case, Isabella the Catholic, Queen of Spain (1451-1504). Isabella's coat of arms embellishes the book's frontispiece. It is unlikely that the book was commissioned by the Queen herself; rather, she probably received it as a diplomatic gift from someone courting her patronage, perhaps Cardinal Francisco Jimenez de Cisneros. A Franciscan friar, Jimenez was dependent upon Isabella for his advancement, first to the post of Queen's confessor in 1492, and then to Archbishop of Toledo in 1495.

Flanders, Ghent and Bruges, late 15th century

 

ink, tempera, and gold on vellum

Codex: 22.5 x 15.2 cm (8 7/8 x 6 in.)

 

Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. Fund

clevelandart.org/art/1963.256.205.a

The presentation scene on this seal depicts a seated, bearded deity in horned headdress and flounced robe. An interceding goddess leads a worshipper, bald in a long robe, by the hand. She is posed with one arm raised, and she also wears a flounced robe and horned headdress. An inverted crescent is suspended in the field between them. Finally, a cuneiform inscription in three registers is incorporated into the scene.

 

Cylinder seals are cylindrical objects carved in reverse (intaglio) in order to leave raised impressions when rolled into clay. Seals were generally used to mark ownership, and they could act as official identifiers, like a signature, for individuals and institutions. A seal’s owner rolled impressions in wet clay to secure property such as baskets, letters, jars, and even rooms and buildings. This clay sealing prevented tampering because it had to be broken in order to access a safeguarded item. Cylinder seals were often made of durable material, usually stone, and most were drilled lengthwise so they could be strung and worn. A seal’s material and the images inscribed on the seal itself could be protective. The artistry and design might be appreciated and considered decorative as well. Cylinder seals were produced in the Near East beginning in the fourth millennium BCE and date to every period through the end of the first millennium BCE.

Neo-Sumerian

 

Diam: 1/2 in. (1.3 cm)

medium: hematite

culture: Neo-Sumerian

 

Walters Art Museum, 1941, by purchase.

art.thewalters.org/detail/4399

This view of the Piazza San Marco, Venice shows Bellotto's devotion to faithful observation. At the left is the church of St. Mark with the Doge's Palace just beyond, leading to the lagoon. Vertically dividing the canvas is the campanile (bell tower) with the Procuratie Nuove (a government building) extending to the right. At the extreme right, opposite St. Mark's, is the façade of the church of San Geminiano which was removed in the 19th century by Napoleon. The two wings of the Procuratie were then joined across the west end of the piazza. Bernardo Bellotto was the nephew and student of Canaletto (Giovanni Antonio Canal, 1697–1768) who ran one of the most productive painting workshops in Italy. Like his uncle, Bellotto specialized in vedute (views) of Italy, especially Venice, which were purchased avidly by British aristocrats traveling on the Grand Tour. Bellotto later worked for the courts of Dresden, Vienna, Warsaw, and Munich, painting topographical and imaginary views of those cities.

Italy, 18th century

 

oil on canvas

Framed: 164.5 x 264 x 12 cm (64 3/4 x 103 15/16 x 4 3/4 in.); Unframed: 136.2 x 232.5 cm (53 5/8 x 91 9/16 in.)

 

Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. Fund

clevelandart.org/art/1962.169

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