Jean Antoine Watteau came from a modest family in the Flemish city of Valenciennes, which had been annexed by France in 1678. He is said to have spent his formative years training under either the religious painter Jacques Albert Gérin (c.
class of patrons epitomized by Pierre Crozat (1665–1740), the immensely wealthy banker
With one hand resting on a baton and the other on the hilt of his sword, the sitter turns and looks down at the viewer, his haughty expression consistent with the proud swagger of his pose. As he stands before an evening sky and extensive landscape with a distant view of the bay of Genoa, light glints off his armor and deep-red sashes, draped gracefully across his body and tied to his arm, enhance his bravura.
The Raggi, a distinguished Genoese family of bankers and merchants, presumably commissioned
An old hermit dressed in a Franciscan habit, his clasped hands resting on a well-thumbed page of the open Bible, kneels before a crucifix and contemplates the mysteries of Christ’s death and resurrection. Gerrit Dou was fascinated by the subject of the contemplative life and its virtue, and he produced at least eleven hermit scenes over the course of his career.
Raphael & the Beautiful Banker: the story of the Bindo Altoviti portrait.
Giovanni della Casa, who is in all likelihood the subject of this portrait, belonged to a wealthy Tuscan family and rose to prominence in the service of the church. As poet, humanist, and political theorist, he circulated at the highest levels of Italian intellectual life.
Raphael, Cellini & a Renaissance Banker: The Patronage of Bindo Altoviti.
We don’t know who this family is, but the inscription on the lid of the box on the floor tells us the date: April 1, 1756.
reported an uncorroborated tale according to which the husband in the painting was a banker
to erect a separate building for the nation’s art.[6] The powerful Pittsburgh banker
Jan Steen’s paintings encompass a wide range of moods and subjects, from intimate scenes of a family saying grace before a meal to festive village celebrations, yet all of his paintings elicit a warm reaction to the lives of ordinary people. All five senses are represented in this work in which two young musicians play for a dancing couple while other people in the vine-covered arbor flirt, eat, drink, or smoke, and children amuse themselves with their toys.
At Spes Non Fracta: Hope & Co. 1770-1815: Merchant Bankers and Diplomats at Work.
Musician Daniel Ho spent much of his childhood on the water, so he relates to Thomas Cole’s river paintings. Ho responds to Voyage of Life with an original suite. Starting with simple harmonies to represent childhood, he gradually introduces complexity.
And he found such a patron in a New York banker named Samuel Ward, who agreed to
the water of the Jordan, the Baptist placed to the left, standing on the rocky banks
first to write that Rembrandt had depicted “a view of his Father’s Mill on the banks
