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Portrait Of A Commander
''Portrait of a Commander'' or ''A Commander Being Dressed for Battle'' is a portrait of an unknown man in plate armour, by Peter Paul Rubens. In July 2010 it was sold for £9 million by Christie's after Sotheby's turned it down, suspecting its authenticity as a Rubens. In December 2011, the portrait was placed on loan with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Description The painting, done in Oil painting, oil on panel, measures 48.25 × 38 3/8 in. (122.6 × 98.2 cm). It depicts a military commander, as shown by his Baton (symbol), baton, being dressed by Page (servant), pages. The identity of the commander is unknown, although Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, Cornelis van der Geest, and the Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, 3rd Duke of Alba, Duke of Alba have all been identified as possible subjects. The Christie's cataloguer felt that the commander appears too idealized to be an actual person. The painting has been praised for its crisp and intense hue and the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Paul Rubens
Sir Peter Paul Rubens (; ; 28 June 1577 – 30 May 1640) was a Flemish artist and diplomat from the Duchy of Brabant in the Southern Netherlands (modern-day Belgium). He is considered the most influential artist of the Flemish Baroque tradition. Rubens's highly charged compositions reference erudite aspects of classical and Christian history. His unique and immensely popular Baroque style emphasized movement, colour, and sensuality, which followed the immediate, dramatic artistic style promoted in the Counter-Reformation. Rubens was a painter producing altarpieces, portraits, landscapes, and history paintings of mythological and allegorical subjects. He was also a prolific designer of cartoons for the Flemish tapestry workshops and of frontispieces for the publishers in Antwerp. In addition to running a large workshop in Antwerp that produced paintings popular with nobility and art collectors throughout Europe, Rubens was a classically educated humanist scholar and diploma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Spencer, 2nd Earl Spencer
George John Spencer, 2nd Earl Spencer, (1 September 1758 – 10 November 1834), styled Viscount Althorp from 1765 to 1783, was a British Whig politician. He served as Home Secretary from 1806 to 1807 in the Ministry of All the Talents. He was also the father of The Venerable Father Ignatius Spencer, a Roman Catholic convert to the priesthood. Background and education Lord Spencer was born at Wimbledon Park, London, the son of John Spencer, 1st Earl Spencer, and his wife Margaret Georgiana Poyntz, daughter of Stephen Poyntz, and was baptised there on 16 October 1758. His godparents were King George II, the Earl Cowper (his grandmother's second husband) and his great-aunt the Dowager Viscountess Bateman. His sister Lady Georgiana Spencer married the Duke of Devonshire and became a famed Whig hostess. He was educated at Harrow School from 1770 to 1775 and he won the school's ''Silver Arrow'' (an archery prize) in 1771. He then attended Trinity College, Cambridge, from 1776 t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Portraits By Peter Paul Rubens
A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expressions are predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person. For this reason, in photography a portrait is generally not a snapshot, but a composed image of a person in a still position. A portrait often shows a person looking directly at the painter or photographer, in order to most successfully engage the subject with the viewer. History Prehistorical portraiture Plastered human skulls were reconstructed human skulls that were made in the ancient Levant between 9000 and 6000 BC in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B period. They represent some of the oldest forms of art in the Middle East and demonstrate that the prehistoric population took great care in burying their ancestors below their homes. The skulls denote some of the earliest sculptural examples of portraiture in the history of art. Historical portraitu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Willem Van Haecht
Willem van Haecht (1593 – 12 July 1637) was a Flemish painter best known for his pictures of art galleries and collections. Life Willem van Haecht was born in Antwerp as the son of the landscape painter Tobias Verhaecht. Tobias Verhaecht was a prominent painter who had been the first teacher of Peter Paul Rubens. Willem was a pupil of his father. He worked in Paris from 1615 to 1619, and then travelled to Italy for about seven years. Van Haecht became a master in Antwerp's guild of St. Luke in 1626 and from 1628 onwards was the curator of the art collection owned by Cornelis van der Geest. This collection is represented in allegorical terms in the ''Gallery of Cornelis van der Geest'' (1628; Rubenshuis, Antwerp). The left side of the painting includes various portraits of contemporaneous figures, including (from the left) Infanta Isabel Clara of Spain, Archduke Albert of Austria, Peter Paul Rubens, Prince Władysław Vasa of Poland (who visited van der Geest's Gallery i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brian Sewell
Brian Alfred Christopher Bushell Sewell (; 15 July 1931 – 19 September 2015) was an English art critic. He wrote for the ''Evening Standard'' and had an acerbic view of conceptual art and the Turner Prize. ''The Guardian'' described him as "Britain's most famous and controversial art critic", while the ''Standard'' called him the "nation’s best art critic". Early life Sewell was born on 15 July 1931, in Hammersmith, London, taking his mother's surname, Perkins. The man who in later life he claimed was his father, composer Philip Heseltine, better known as Peter Warlock, died of coal gas poisoning seven months before Sewell was born. Brian was brought up in Kensington, west London, and elsewhere by his mother, Mary Jessica Perkins, who married Robert Sewell in 1936. He was educated at the independent Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School in Hampstead, northwest London. Offered a place to read history at Oxford, Sewell instead chose to enter the Courtauld Institute of Art, Univ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frans Pourbus The Younger
Frans Pourbus the Younger (1569–1622) was a Flemish painter, son of Frans Pourbus the Elder and grandson of Pieter Pourbus. He was born in Antwerp and died in Paris. He is also referred to as "Frans II". Pourbus worked for many of the highly influential people of his day, including the Brussels-based Spanish Regents of the Netherlands, the Duke of Mantua and Marie de' Medici, Queen of France. Works of his can be found in the Royal Collection, the National Museum in Warsaw, the Louvre, the Prado, the Rijksmuseum, the Royal College of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and many other museums. Style Pourbus was best known for portraits, but created some history paintings. He produced portraits that were pleasing to his patrons, but rarely providing his works with dramatic situations, or even landscape backgrounds. He is noted for his depiction of costume, jewellery and draperies, as in his portrait of Henry IV of France (below). Patronage Pourbus completed his apprenticeship ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kenneth Thomson, 2nd Baron Thomson Of Fleet
Kenneth Roy Thomson, 2nd Baron Thomson of Fleet (September 1, 1923 – June 12, 2006), known in Canada as Ken Thomson, was a Canadian/British businessman and art collector. At the time of his death, he was listed by ''Forbes'' as the richest person in Canada and the ninth richest person in the world, with a net worth of approximately US $19.6 billion. Early life and career Thomson was born on September 1, 1923, in Toronto, Ontario. He was the son of Roy Thomson, the founder of the Thomson Corporation. Thomson was first educated at Upper Canada College before going up to St. John's College, Cambridge, where he received a degree in economics and law. During World War II, he served in the Royal Canadian Air Force. Following the war, he completed his education and entered the family business. Business owner Upon his father's death in 1976, Thomson succeeded as 2nd Lord Thomson of Fleet. However, Thomson never used his noble title in Canada or took up his seat in the House of Lord ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Toronto
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anchor of the Golden Horseshoe, an urban agglomeration of 9,765,188 people (as of 2021) surrounding the western end of Lake Ontario, while the Greater Toronto Area proper had a 2021 population of 6,712,341. Toronto is an international centre of business, finance, arts, sports and culture, and is recognized as one of the most multicultural and cosmopolitan cities in the world. Indigenous peoples have travelled through and inhabited the Toronto area, located on a broad sloping plateau interspersed with rivers, deep ravines, and urban forest, for more than 10,000 years. After the broadly disputed Toronto Purchase, when the Mississauga surrendered the area to the British Crown, the British established the town of York in 1793 and later designat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Massacre Of The Innocents (Rubens)
''The Massacre of the Innocents'' is the subject of two paintings by Peter Paul Rubens depicting the episode of the biblical Massacre of the Innocents of Bethlehem, as related in the Gospel of Matthew (2:13-18). The first, measuring 142 x 182 cm, was painted after his return to his native Antwerp in 1608, following eight years spent in Italy. First painting The first version painted by Rubens dates from around 1611–12. At the end of the seventeenth century, the painting became part of the Liechtenstein Collection in Vienna, Austria, along with another Rubens painting, ''Samson and Delilah''. The Forchondt brothers sold both paintings to Hans-Adam I, Prince of Liechtenstein whom they knew through his father Karl Eusebius, Prince of Liechtenstein around 1700.Press release on record breaking sale amount [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Konrad Bernheimer
Konrad Otto Bernheimer (born 30 August 1950) is a German Venezuelan art dealer and collector. He is the chairman and owner of Bernheimer Fine Old Masters in Munich, and was the owner of Colnaghi in London. He sold Colnaghi to the Spanish dealers Jorge Coll and Nicolas Cortés in 2016. Early life Konrad Otto Bernheimer was born in Rubio, Venezuela, on 30 August 1950. Following Kristallnacht on 9–10 November 1938, which saw the huge plate glass windows of the Bernheimer-Haus smashed, the family was sent to Dachau concentration camp. The Mexican government intervened, as his grandfather Otto Bernheimer was the Mexican honorary consul in Munich. Hermann Göring, a Bernheimer client, did a deal whereby they bought his niece’s Venezuelan coffee plantation which was struggling, and were allowed to emigrate there, and also had to take Göring's aunt and her Jewish husband along, and support them until they died. His father Kurt Bernheimer (1911–1954) committed suicide (which Ko ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Althorp
Althorp (popularly pronounced ) is a Grade I listed stately home and estate in the civil parish of Althorp, in West Northamptonshire, England of about . By road it is about northwest of the county town of Northampton and about northwest of central London, situated between the villages of Great Brington and Harlestone. It has been held by the prominent aristocratic Spencer family for more than 500 years, and has been owned by Charles Spencer, 9th Earl Spencer since 1992. It was also the home of Lady Diana Spencer (later Princess of Wales) from her parents' divorce until her marriage to Charles, Prince of Wales. Althorp is mentioned as a small hamlet in the Domesday Book as "Olletorp", and by 1377 it had become a village with a population of more than fifty people. By 1505 there were no longer any tenants living there, and in 1508, John Spencer purchased Althorp estate with the funds generated from his family's sheep-rearing business. Althorp became one of the prominent state ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Diana, Princess Of Wales
Diana, Princess of Wales (born Diana Frances Spencer; 1 July 1961 – 31 August 1997) was a member of the British royal family. She was the first wife of King Charles III (then Prince of Wales) and mother of Princes William and Harry. Her activism and glamour made her an international icon, and earned her enduring popularity, as well as almost unprecedented public scrutiny. Diana was born into the British nobility, and grew up close to the royal family on their Sandringham estate. In 1981, while working as a nursery teacher's assistant, she became engaged to the Prince of Wales, the eldest son of Queen Elizabeth II. Their wedding took place at St Paul's Cathedral in 1981 and made her Princess of Wales, a role in which she was enthusiastically received by the public. The couple had two sons, William and Harry, who were then second and third in the line of succession to the British throne. Diana's marriage to Charles suffered due to their incompatibility and extramarital af ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
