Afternoon Tea by the Italian classicist painter  Francesco Brunery (1849-1926). Brunery studied with Gérôme and was well known for his anti-clerical art. Here it looks like the older lady is hooking up the cardinal with a young girl, maybe her daughter or niece.
Massacre in Brazil today, by Tom Phillips
14 hours ago
 

 

If Brunery created expensive, elaborate paintings but with an anti-clerical viewpoint, who would buy his paintings? I bet it was an expensive work.
ReplyDeleteMaybe you are way too British. Especially in the catholic parts of Europe in the 19th century there was always a strong bourgeois anticlerical movement. The Pope was a strong enemy of the Italian unification and was expulsed from Rome by the triumphant nationalists.
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