Fairy Tale Knight

A Knight at the Crossroads (1878) by the Russian painter Viktor Vasnetsov (1848-1926). The scene is taken from an old Russian fairy tale where a hero comes to a fork in the road where he found menhir with the inscription: "If you ride to the left, you will lose your horse, if you ride to the right, you will lose your head"

The Flute Concert

The Flute Concert by the French painter Gustave Clarence Rodolphe Boulanger (1824-88). It's evident that the artist and his potential buyers had visited Pomeii and studied there the architecture and especially the frescoes. So the painting is above all a nice reconstruction of a Pompeiian villa.

The Father of the Occident

The Coronation of Charlemagne (1861) by the German romantic painter Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Theodor Kaulbach (1822-1839). Kaulbach did this mural for the Maximilianeum a big palatial building in Munich. started in 1857. Corresponding to the neo-Gothic style of the Maximilianeum these murals should emphasize a long tradition dating back to the middle ages.

A Wicked Queen

Cleopatra Testing Poisons on Condemned Prisoners (1887) by the French painter Alexandre Cabanel (1823-1889). The beautiful but cruel Cleopatra watches cold and impassively the effect of poison on some poor prisoners. The painter also makes great efforts with the exotic dress and the Egyptian architecture in the background, which he probably knew by the then very popular prints of the paintings by David Roberts.

God was watching

The Christianization of Poland (1889) by the Polish painter Jan Matejko (1838-1893). Above all it's a symbolic painting. People are plowing, cutting timber while others are being baptized and all is illuminated by the divine light from above.

Nice Decadence

A Roman Bath (1858) by the Russian painter Fyodor Andreyevich Bronnikov (1827-1902). Roman decadence was already an important subject at this time and Bronnikov uses it to stage some beautiful girls. They seem to be posing among each other but in the end it's all for the onlooker.

Battle of Somo-Sierra

The Battle of Somo-Sierra in Castille, 30 november 1808 (1810) by the French battle painter Louis-François Lejeune (1775-1848). Lejeune was himself with the Napoleonic troops in Spain, so it's quite possible that the battle happened like he painted it two years later.

A cruel Empress

The Empress Theodora at the Colosseum (c. 1889) by the French painter Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant (1845-1902). Nothing is to be seen of the bloody spectacle in the arena. There is only the empress, cool and relaxed she is watching. But it's no coincidence that the dominating colour is red.

Slaughterhouse Troy

Andromache (1884) by the French painter Georges-Antoine Rochegrosse (1859-1938). Andromache was the wife of the Trojan hero Hector, who was slain by Achilles. When Troy felt Ulysses tried to kill her son and she became a Greek prisoner and slave. So, Rochegrosse gives here an impressive view of what happened in Troy after its fall.

Well equipped Columbus

Columbus at San Salvador by the American history painter Jean Leon Gerome Ferris (1863-1930). This painting was probably done in the 1920s. Costumes, arms and the backdrop details are much better than on the typical 19th century paintings. But Ferris is already late, he painted in the manner of a bygone epoch. A better decoration didn't make a better painting at this time.

Bloody Fighting

Defending the pulpit in the monastery San Agustín (1884) by the Spanish painter César Álvarez Dumont (1866 – 1945). Another heroic fighting scene from the defense of Zaragoza in 1808/09. The defense of Zaragoza by its population was in Spain probably the most glorified episode of the Napoleonic wars.

Beneath the Arena

Beneath the Arena (1882) by the German painter Karl Theodor von Piloty (1826–1886). Especially compared to the typical arena paintings, which prefered mostly the great spectacle, this is a more silent work. A young Roman patrician looks impressed on a Christian women sleeping while awaiting her death in the arena.