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This painting is from a series of four illustrating a series of critical events in the life of the biblical figure Susanna from the Book of Daniel. The first panel in the series, now at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, shows the beautiful Susanna confronted by two community elders while bathing in her private garden. The elders told Susanna that they would accuse her of adultery unless she submitted to their sexual advances. When Susanna refused, the two men brought her to trial. This is the subject of the present painting, with the two elders—standing at the center of the picture—delivering their verdict and condemning Susanna to death. The third panel, now at the Walters (37.485), shows the young Daniel halting Susanna’s execution outside the city walls. The fourth, also at the Walters (37.490), shows Daniel vindicating Susanna after a thorough questioning of the elders and their subsequent execution by stoning.
These paintings are a type of object known as "spalliera" panels. Derived from the Italian word “spalla,” meaning "shoulder," spalliera panels were originally displayed at shoulder height as part of the wall paneling in the room of an Italian palace. The individual compositions may seem similar to those for the fronts of marriage chests but the dimensions are much larger.
Painted surface H: 23 x W: 64 15/16 x D excluding cradle: 3/8 in. (58.4 x 164.9 x 1 cm)
medium: oil on wood panel
Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.
This Ethopian sensul, or "chain" manuscript, was made in the seventeenth century in the Gondarine region. It was created out of a single folded strip of parchment attached to heavy hide "boards" at each end, creating a small book when folded. Comprised solely of inscribed images, this pocket-sized manuscript would have served a devotional function for its owner, who while unidentified, inscribed the first image with a note reminding people under the threat of excommunication not to steal or erase the manuscript. Narrative illuminations, which tell the story of the Virgin Mary, allow for private meditation. The book can also function as something of an icon, for when it is opened to the middle and stood on end, the facing figures of St. George and the Virgin and Child form a small diptych, resembling other icons of this era.
Christian Highland Ethiopian
H: 3 x W unfolded: 23 in. (7.62 x 58.42 cm)
H each panel: 3 5/8 x W: 3 1/8 in. (9.2 x 9 cm)
medium: ink and pigments on medium weight parchment, reinforced with a heavier parchment backing covered with upper and lower boards made of heavy undecorated hide, stitched to ends of parchment strip
culture: Christian Highland Ethiopian
Walters Art Museum, 1996, by purchase.
Zhao Zhong's flowers, each paired with a poem, echo the fine-style colored flowers of the academic tradition, but instead he used only ink. Fine lines define the contours of each plant, as well as the veins within each petal and leaf. Careful ink washes give subtle modeling to the forms. <br><br>The combination of lily, narcissus, and peony is unusual as the three belong to no known seasonal or symbolic system popular in the fourteenth century. Zhao’s medical training may have influenced the selection. Powdered lilies, for example, were prescribed to dispel grief, while the bark of tree peony roots was used as a treatment for various blood disorders.
China, Yuan dynasty (1271-1368)
Handscroll; ink on paper
Overall: 31.8 x 153.2 cm (12 1/2 x 60 5/16 in.)
Did you know...
This handscroll is a very rare example of ink flowers in the linear <em>baimiao</em> style of the fourteenth century.
John L. Severance Fund
Extracts from Alfred Jacob Miller’s original text, which accompanied his images of Native Americans, are included below for reference.
"The most favorable time to view these Lakes (to an artist especially) was early in the morning or towards sunset;- at these times one side or the other would be thrown into deep purple masses, throwing great broad shadows, with sharp light glittering on the extreme tops,- while the opposite mountains received its full complement of awrm, mellow & subdued light;- thus forming a chiaro obscuro and contrast most essential to the picturesque in color:- an attempt has been made to reach this in the sketch. This was the only lake we saw that had an island;- the scene in reality was charming, but would have required the pencil of Satnfield, Turner, or Church in giving it due effect and rendering it complete justice. Patiently it awaits the coming man." 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 3/16 in. (23.2 x 30.9 cm)
medium: watercolor on paper
Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.
one of the longest URLs I've ever seen, the idea og telling someone over the phone to check out this site is scary
Perhaps the finest of the early Limoges enamellers was the Master of the Triptych of Louis XII. The name given to this anonymous artist, who must have enjoyed considerable princely patronage, derives from a triptych in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, which has on its wings portraits of King Louis XII of France and his consort, Anne of Brittany.
The luminous blues, the mulberry, ochre and greens of this triptych are subtly balanced to create an intimate and tragically moving mood. The intensity and purity of the colors recall the splendor of stained-glass windows and it is not surprising, therefore, to find that such windows did in fact occasionally serve as models for this artist's compositions.
Center panel H: 7 3/8 x W: 6 5/8 in. (18.8 x 16.9 cm)
Each wing H: 7 3/8 x W: 2 13/16 in. (18.8 x 7.2 cm)
medium: translucent enamels on copper
Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.