Pleading for Compassion

Priamus at the Feet of Achilles pleading for the Body of Hector (1876) by the French painter Joseph Wencker (1848-1919). Despite the story nowadays is mostly forgotten it was a very popular subject in the 18th and 19th century. The old king softening the heart of the harsh and bitter hero.

Classical Exploitation

Summer Bath at Pompeii (1876) by the French painter Gustave Clarence Rodolphe Boulanger (1824-88). The classical scenery here is a mere smokescreen to present a bunch of stretching nudes.

Leftovers of an Army

French retreat in 1812 by the Russian painter Illarion Mikhailovich Pryanishnikov (1840 –1894). Here some poor survivors of the once so proud "Grande Armée" are walked to prison by poorly armed Russian peasants.

A Classical Mother

Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi (1785) by the Swiss/Austrian painter Maria Anna Angelica Catharina Kauffmann. As a women Kauffmann painted here a female heroine, Cornelia who was considered responsible for the education of her sons who became later very important politicians.

Finding Moses

Pharoah's daughter finds Moses (1886) by the British painter Edwin Longsden Long. This is a very traditional subject in art history and lots of painters made a version of that story. What's relatively new is the historical exotic touch. Long traveled to Syria and Egypt and was specialized in oriental paintings.

A Female Butcher

After the murder (1882) by the British painter John Collier (1850-1934). Collier depicted here Clytemnestra the wife of king Agamemnon. She killed her husband in the bath after he had returned from the Trojan war. But probably she got her reason. Agamemnon had sacrificed her daughter Iphigenia and brought for himself a new wife as a trophy from the war. Probably Collier got the same opinion because he shows her with an axe not with the usual dagger, so she looks strong and pround.

A British Hero

The Duke of Wellington at Waterloo by the British battle painter Robert Alexander Hillingford (1825-1904). Hillingford did a whole series of Waterloo paintings. Here he shows the Duke of Wellington encouraging one of his famous infantry squares the backbone of the British army then.

Faded Laurels

Faded Laurels (1889) by the British painter Edmund Blair-Leighton (1853-1922). Beautiful cheesy middle ages, could also be a scene from the Lord of the Rings.

CinemaScope Painting

Across the Brazos by the great American artist Robert McGinnis (born 1926). McGinnis did over 1200 paperback book covers and movie posters. Here is a good example how the newly invented CinemaScope format also influenced the formats of paintings.

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.