William-Adolphe Bouguereau | Italien à la mandoline

A consummate example of Bouguereau's ability to render tender portraits of children, Italien à la mandoline depicts a young peasant boy holding his elegant instrument.

Although images of boys are rare in Bouguereau's oeuvre, perhaps, as Damien Bartoli suggests, because of the artist's difficult relationship with his own father, this youth appears in three other works which date to this same period - Pifferaro (1870), Pifferaro (1874) and Enfant Italien tenant une croûte de pain (1874).

William-Adolphe Bouguereau | Italien a la mandoline

Cheri Blum (1969-2003)

An artist who celebrated beauty in imperfection. These kinds of simple contradictions were Cheri Blum’s trademarks and perhaps the key to her remarkable success.

Cheri Blum who was born in Maryland on 1969 and passed away at her home in Georgetown on November 4, 2003, at the age of 34. In her brilliant but brief career, Cheri Blum created more than 400 original paintings. Cheri Blum began her careeas an illustrator and muralist, creating trompe l’oeil, faux painting and decorative furniture finishes. This background not only provided her with the techniques she used to create her beautiful, unique backgrounds, but also a strong desire to bring art into everyday life. “We should be able to surround ourselves with beautiful art in our homes and offices, not just when we visit museums and galleries”.

Cheri’s approach was inspired by the past, but reflected today’s modern styles. She strove to create art that was peaceful, tranquil and edited of unnecessary detail. The simple, graceful shapes she painted have a timeless quality and restful feeling that make them easy to live with and enjoy.

Galina Chuvilyaeva, 1957 | Angels

Galina Chuvilyaeva / Галина Чувиляева is a famous St. Petersburg artist, jeweler, member of the Union of Designers and the Union of Artists of Russia, a participant in numerous exhibitions.

Galina Chuvilyaeva was born in 1957 on the Volga. Childhood and youth passed in Ukraine, where his father served.

The beauty of the Carpathians, mountains, rivers and gardens blooming twice a year - all this has left an indelible mark on the artist's soul.

Claude Monet | Figures / Portraits | Page 2

Vincent van Gogh | The Ravine of the Peyroulets, 1889

In the autumn of 1889, Van Gogh painted the ravine near the asylum in the southern French town of Saint‑Remy.

He wrote about it to his dear friend Emile Bernard:

"Such subjects certainly have a fine melancholy, but then it is fun to work in rather wild places, where one has to dig one’s easel in between the stones lest the wind should blow the whole caboodle over".

The following spring, Van Gogh sent this painting to Paris, where Paul Gauguin saw it and wrote to him:

Hans Dahl (1849-1937)

Hans Dahl (19 February 1849 - 27 July 1937) was a Norwegian painter.

Hans Dahl was famous for his paintings of Norwegian fjords and surrounding landscapes.

Dahl had his first exhibition in Düsseldorf in 1876. Dahl lived in Düsseldorf until 1888, when he moved to Berlin. Almost every summer, he was back to Norway. In 1893, he commissioned the firm of Jacob Digre in Trondheim to build his summer residence, Villa Strandheim.

It is located on the banks of the Sognefjord at Balestrand in the county of Sogn og Fjordane. Norwegian painter Adelsteen Normann had settled in Balestrand during 1891. Dahl's villa was of a similar design to the villa built for Normann.

James Smetham | The Mandolin, 1866

James Smetham (9 September 1821 - 5 February 1889) was an English Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood painter and engraver, a follower of Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

Smetham worked in a range of genres, including religious and literary themes as well as portraiture; but he is perhaps best known as a landscape painter.

His "landscapes have a visionary quality" reminiscent of the work of William Blake, John Linnell and Samuel Palmer.

Claude Monet | Rising Tide at Pourville, 1882

Throughout his career Claude Monet depicted France’s English Channel coastline.

In works such as Rising Tide at Porville / Marée montante à Pourville, he combined keen observation with Impressionism’s subjective use of color and light effects.

Henrik Willem Mesdag also painted churning waters, of the nearby North Sea.

Here, a small ship with wind-torn sails is tossed by massive, white-capped waves.

The broad expanse of water, almost matching the tone of the sky, dramatizes nature’s mighty power.

Claude Monet | Rising Tide at Pourville (Marée montante à Pourville), 1882 | Brooklyn Museum

Claude Monet | Boats below the Cliffs at Pourville, 1882

Bateaux devant les falaises de Pourville / Boats below the Cliffs at Pourville features a bold geometrically structured composition of diagonals and horizontals, reflective of the more simplified approach that Monet was then exploring.

The horizon line bisects the canvas into two parts of roughly equal size; two tranches of nearly identical size and shape form the sand and sea, whilst the diagonal line of the cliff runs to the very centre of the composition.

The slightly raised vantage point from which Monet has captured this view serves, in comparison with other views from this group, to considerably foreshorten the angle of the shoreline.