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• July 29, 2010
  David Bellingham on Sandro Botticelli’s “Venus and Mars”

  Sotheby’s Institute director David Bellingham breaks down the Neoplatonist touch and multiple layers of meaning behind Sandro Botticelli’s “Venus and Mars”

• September 13, 2009
  Rembrandt’s “The Abduction of Proserpina”

  Since then, Persephone has had to return to Hades for a few months every year. When she departs, Demeter closes herself off. Things cease to grow, and Winter arrives. The lush life goes on hiatus until the Spring, when she returns and we are reborn.

  In the course of this cycle, Fall would seem to take on a foreboding quality. It becomes a fledgling preface to darkness, one that is captured beautifully in Rembrandt’s masterpiece, shown above. His rich palette is indulgent, yet sobered by the somber and foreboding tone of realism.

• July 10, 2009
  Paolo Veronese (c. 1528 – 1588) “Wisdom and Strength,” c.1580

  Like “The Wedding at Cana”, a jpeg of one of Veronese’s most iconic works doesn’t do justice to its eminent presence at the end of the Frick Collection’s grand foyer. In America’s most famous room of masterpieces,  it is at the head of the table. The painting has had a quite  colorful history before crossing [...]

• June 24, 2009
  Francisco Goya de Lucientes’ “Los Caprichos”

  Francisco Goya’s passion for his homeland was both a great strength and weakness. It was intense enough to carry this scrappy youth from the barren rural outpost of Aragon to a long and illustrious career as the official court painter to the Royal family in Madrid. His powerful depictions of Spanish life were the lifeblood [...]

• March 31, 2009
  Sandro Botticelli’s “La Primavera”

  A modern look at a timeless masterpiece, Sandro Botticelli’s “La Primavera”

• September 9, 2008
  Giovanni Bellini (1430-1516) : “Giovanni Emo”

  The most renowned member of the Bellini family of painters, Giovanni Bellini was considered one of the great pioneers of Venetian style of painting, championing a more detailed style and a sumptuous range of color that served as an influence for the great Venetian painters of the age such as Giorgione and Titian. This picture [...]

• August 20, 2008
  Guido Reni, “The Rape of Deianira”

  Guido Reni The Rape of Deianira 1621 Oil on canvas, 239 x 193 cm Musée du Louvre, Paris

• August 13, 2008
  Tintoretto, “St. George and the Dragon”

  Jacopo Robusti, known as Tintoretto “Saint George and the Dragon” c. 1550 Oil on canvas 122 x 92 cm (48 x 36 in.) collection of The Hermitage, St Petersburg