Michelangelo Buonarroti | Crouching Boy, 1530-1534

Author: Michelangelo Buonarroti🎨 (Italian High Renaissance / Mannerist Painter / Sculptor, 1475-1564)

Title: Crouching Boy

Place: Italy. Florence

Date: circa 1530-1534

Material: marble

Dimensions: height: 54 cm

Acquisition date: Entered the Hermitage in 1851; transferred from the Academy of Fine Arts

Camillo Rusconi (1658-1728) | Baroque Era sculptor

Camillo Ruscóni (14 July 1658 - 8 December 1728) was an Italian sculptor🎨 of the late Baroque🎨 in Rome. His style displays both features of Baroque and Neoclassicism. He has been described as a Carlo Maratta in marble.

Initially trained in his hometown of Milan with Giuseppe Rusnati. By 1685-1686, he had moved to Rome and into the studio of Ercole Ferrata, who died within a year or two of his arrival.

Jens Ferdinand Willumsen | Symbolist / Expressionist painter

Jens Ferdinand Willumsen (7 September 1863 - 4 April 1958) was a Danish painter, sculptor, graphic artist, architect and photographer. He became associated with the movements of Symbolism🎨 and Expressionism.

J. F. Willumsen was born in Copenhagen, Denmark. He was the son of Hans Willumsen and Ane Kirstine. He was initially trained in art at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts from 1881-1885 and in architecture at the Copenhagen Technical College from 1879-1882. He completed his education in 1885 with the artists P.S. Krøyer🎨 (1851-1909) and Laurits Tuxen (1853-1927).

His works were exhibited in the Paris Salon, the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, the Société des Artistes Indépendants, the art gallery of Le Barc de Boutteville and at the Exposition Universelle (1900).

Arturo Martini | Ritratto di Wally Toscanini,1925

Arturo Martini🎨, (born August 11, 1889, Treviso, Italy - died March 22, 1947, Milan), was a leading Italian sculptor and painter between World War I and II.

He moved between a very vigorous (almost ancient Roman) classicism and modernism. He was associated with public sculpture in fascist Italy, but later renounced his medium altogether.

• Futurism

Martini seems to have been an active supporter of the Futurist movement between 1914-1918. He certainly corresponded with Umberto Boccioni and produced a modernist booklet in 1918. His early works show an archaic tendency, two-dimensionality and polychrome effects.

Michelangelo Buonarroti | Sol io ardendo all'ombra mi rimango | Sonnets / Le Rime

Molti anni fassi qual felice, in una

brevissima ora si lamenta e dole;

o per famosa o per antica prole

altri s'inlustra, e ’n un momento imbruna.

Cosa mobil non è che sotto el sole

non vinca morte e cangi la fortuna.

A man who's happy many a year, one hour

- even less! - undoes; all's lost in grief and worry.

Another basks in his family name; that glory

is out in a flash as blacker heavens lour.

None so alive but death cuts short the story;

nothing so sweet but fortune turns it sour ...

Alfred Boucher (French sculptor, 1850-1934)

A French🎨 sculptor, Alfred Boucher (23 September 1850-1934), mentor to Camille Claudel🎨 and friend of Auguste Rodin🎨.

Born in Bouy-sur-Ovin (Nogent-sur-Seine), he was the son of a farmhand who became the gardener of the sculptor Joseph-Marius Ramus, who, after recognizing Boucher's talent, opened his studio to him.

He won the Grand Prix🎨 du Salon in 1881 with La Piété Filiale. He then moved to Florence for a long period and was a favourite sculptor of presidents and royalty such as George I of Greece and Maria-Pia of Romania.

He provided inspiration and encouragement to the next generation of sculptors such as Laure Coutan and Camille Claudel🎨.

Philippe Guillerm (French, 1959)

Philippe Guillerm began his professional life in Paris, France the city where he was born and lived for twenty years.

Through the years, he has traveled around the world with his wife Jacqueline and their two daughters Monique and Swanne on his forty-eight foot sailboat.

Guillerm's music-inspired sculptures are whimsical and curvaceous string instruments, he uses the theme as a way of expressing human nature and needs, you see an instrument, he sees an attitude. In addition to the musical theme, many of his sculptures depict sea scenes and animals.

Romain de Tirtoff (1892-1990) | Art Déco Painter / Sculptor

Romain de Tirtoff /Роман Петрович Тыртов was a Russian / French artist🎨 and designer known by the pseudonym Erté.

Tirtoff was born as Roman Petrov de Tyrtov in St. Petersburg, Russian Empire in a very distinguished family with roots traced back to 1548.

His father Pyotr Ivanovich de Tyrtov was a Fleet Admiral. In 1910-1912 Romain moved to Paris to pursue a career as a designer.

This decision was made over strong objections of his father, who wanted Romain to continue a family tradition and to become a naval officer.

Romain assumed the pseudonym to avoid disgracing the family.

In 1915 he got his first significant contract with Harper's Bazaar magazine, and he went on to an illustrious career that included designing costumes and stage sets.

Antonio Canova | Head of Medusa, 1799-1800

Antonio Canova (1 November 1757 - 13 October 1822) was an Italian** Neoclassical sculptor, famous for his marble sculptures.

Often regarded as the greatest of the Neoclassical artists, his artwork was inspired by the Baroque** and the classical revival, but avoided the melodramatics of the former, and the cold artificiality of the latter.

Auguste Rodin at work, 1915

Man Ray (1890-1976)

Emmanuel Rudnitzky, pseudonimo Man Ray, è stato un pittore, fotografo e regista statunitense, esponente del Dadaismo.

Ray rivoluzionò l'arte fotografica. Grandi artisti dell'epoca come James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, Jean Cocteau e molti altri posarono di fronte alla sua macchina fotografica.

Giovanni Dupré | Saffo abbandonata, 1853

Cesare Lapini (1848-1893) | Sorpresa

Joseph Bernard | La Jeunesse Charmée Par L'amour, 1906

Joseph-Antoine Bernard (1866-1931) came from a family of stone hewers; a grant enabled him to study at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Lyon (1881) then at the fine art school in Paris from 1885. He gradually freed himself from the decisive influence of Rodin and pathetic feeling and worked in an increasingly sober, monumental manner. Giving up the attempt at achieving realistic detail and turning away from clay modelling, he worked on dry plaster and directly on stone, as for this head. He was one of the first to return to working directly on stone and achieved denser volumes, simpler forms and very powerful archaic effects.

Abastenia St. Leger Eberle | Windy doorstep, 1910

Abastenia St. Leger Eberle (April 6, 1878 - February 26, 1942) was an American sculptor. Her most famous piece The White Slave representing child prostitution caused controversy when exhibited at the 1913 Armory Show.
A native of Webster City, Iowa, her father was a doctor and her mother a musician. Her family later moved to Kansas, then Missouri, before settling in Canton, Ohio. She initially studied to become a professional musician, but her father noticed her talent for modeling. She received lessons from one of his patients before enrolling at the Art Students League in New York City.

Donatello | David, 1440

Josepha Brigette, 1950 | Bronze figurative sculptor

Josepha Brigette was born in the South of France and owed her first name to her mother's Italian origin. She began her career as a fashion designer. In spite of the international success which she gained, her creative thirst incited her to confront with other materials. Thus, at the beginning of 1990, Josepha chose to dedicate herself completely to sculpture. The man with whom she shares her life, having evolved in the world of plastic arts, accompanied her first steps. Josepha experimented with clay, stone and bronze, finally discovering the perfect medium for her to express her colorful whims: polyester. Josepha's sculptures live, move, breathe!

Johan Niclas Bystrom | Junon allaitant Hercule

Johan Niclas Byström (1783-1848) was a Swedish sculptor. Byström was born at Filipstad and went to Stockholm the age of twenty, studying there for three years under Johan Tobias Sergel.

In 1809 he gained the prize of the Royal Academy of Arts, and in the following year visited Rome.

He sent home a beautiful work, "The Reclining Bacchante", in half life size, which raised him at once to the first rank among Swedish sculptors.

On his return to Stockholm in 1816 he presented the crown prince (the later king Charles XIV) with a colossal statue of himself, and was entrusted with several important works.

La Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi, Roma 1651

Realizzata al centro di Piazza Navona di Roma da Gian Lorenzo Bernini, nel 1651, la fontana dei Quattro Fiumi realizza lo straordinario supporto alla copia romana di un obelisco egizio, proveniente dal Circo di Massenzio. Opera di architettura, oltre che di scultura, la Fontana mette in mostra un vero e proprio artificio barocco, nell'appoggio dell'obelisco sul vuoto. La fontana, coronata dalla colomba dello Spirito Santo - emblema del Papa Innocenzo X, committente dell'opera - fu anche interpretata come simbolo del trionfo della Chiesa sulle quattro parti del mondo. La fontana fu scoperta al pubblico il 12 giugno 1661.