This engaging narrative scene was the center panel of an altarpiece commissioned in 1398 for the Chapel of Saint Peter, near the high altar of the cathedral in Siena. It would have been flanked, in all probability, by standing saints—one of them Peter—and surmounted by other saints shown half-length.
London and Toronto, 1993: repro. 112. Cséfalvay, Pál, ed.
In 1632 Anthony van Dyck was invited to England to work at the court of King Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria. In Van Dyck, the royal couple and the English aristocracy found an artist whose gifts perfectly matched their artistic sensitivities as well as their political needs and aspirations.
Walker, Self-Portrait with Donors: Confessions of an Art Collector, Boston and Toronto
Lorenzo de‘ Medici, the brilliant, learned, and ruthless head of a wealthy banking family, ruled the Italian city-state of Florence in the Renaissance. This bust may copy a wax statue made to commemorate Lorenzo’s survival in 1478, when an assassination plot took the life of his younger brother.
Lexington, MA and Toronto, 1992: 257, repro.
Resurrection across Convents, Parishes, and Courts Elizabeth Harney, University of Toronto
The Dancer was one of seven works that Renoir included in the first exhibition of the Société anonyme coopérative des artistes, peintres, sculpteurs, graveurs, etc., which opened in April 1874. In contrast to works by most of the other artists in the group—soon to be dubbed the impressionists—Renoir’s paintings were relatively well received.
Boston and Toronto, 1962:168. Gaunt, William. Renoir.
Edouard Manet offers an intriguing study in contrasts and ambiguity in The Railway , starting with the relationship between the two figures. Are they mother and daughter?
of Small Pictures by Members of the Ontario Society of Artists, Art Gallery of Toronto
Painted in August 1907, Forty-two Kids depicts a band of nude and partially clothed boys engaged in a variety of antics—swimming, diving, sunbathing, smoking, and possibly urinating—on and near a dilapidated wharf jutting out over New York City’s East River. A sharp observer of urban life, George Bellows has sketched his streetwise subjects with characteristic vigor and economy of means, and he has carefully rendered their varied ethnic backgrounds.
February 1949, no. 38. 1950 Canadian National Exhibition Art Exhibit, Art Gallery of Toronto
Giotto ’s explorations and innovations in art during the early 14th century developed, a full century later, into the Italian Renaissance. Besides making panel paintings, he executed many fresco cycles—the most famous at the Arena Chapel, Padua—and he also worked as an architect and sculptor.
Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, 2012-2013, no. 2
Walker, Self-Portrait with Donors: Confessions of an Art Collector (Boston and Toronto
Sensational and scandalous for an American audience unused to seeing classically nude statues of women, this figure by Hiram Powers caused a frenzy when it was first exhibited in the mid-19th century. Curious viewers came in droves to see it after Powers sent several copies from Italy, where he created the work.
Wunder, Hiram Powers: Vermont Sculptor, 1805-1873, 2 vols., Newark, London, and Toronto
