Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid_Picture Gallery, The Masterpieces (2)

Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Picture Gallery, The Masterpieces

(2)

BALDUNG GRIEN, Hans Portrait of a Woman1530 (?)Oil on canvas, 69.2 x 52.5 cmMuseo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

BALDUNG GRIEN, Hans Portrait of a Woman (detail)1530 (?)Oil on canvas, 69.2 x 52.5 cmMuseo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

RUBENS, Peter PaulVenus at her Toiletc. 1608Oil on canvas, 137 x 11 cmMuseo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

RUBENS, Peter PaulVenus at her Toilet (detail)c. 1608Oil on canvas, 137 x 11 cmMuseo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

CARAVAGGIOSt Catherine of Alexandriac. 1598Oil on canvas, 173 x 133 cmMuseo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

CARAVAGGIOSt Catherine of Alexandria (detail)c. 1598Oil on canvas, 173 x 133 cmMuseo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

CARPACCIO, VittorePortrait of a Knight1510Tempera on canvas, 218 x 152 cmMuseo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

CARPACCIO, VittorePortrait of a Knight (detail)1510Tempera on canvas, 218 x 152 cmMuseo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

CRANACH, HansHercules at the Court of Omphale1537Oil on panel 57.5 x 85.3 cmMuseo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

CRANACH, HansHercules at the Court of Omphale (detail)1537Oil on panel 57.5 x 85.3 cmMuseo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

DÜRER, AlbrechtChrist Among the Doctors1506Oil on panel, 65 x 80 cmMuseo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

DÜRER, AlbrechtChrist Among the Doctors (detail)1506Oil on panel, 65 x 80 cmMuseo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

HOLBEIN, Hans the YoungerPortrait of Henry VIII of Englandca. 1537Oil on panel. 28 x 20 cmMuseo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

HOLBEIN, Hans the YoungerPortrait of Henry VIII of England (detail)ca. 1537Oil on panel. 28 x 20 cmMuseo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

GHIRLANDAIO, DomenicoPortrait of Giovanna Tornabuoni1489-90Mixed technique on panel. 77 x 49 cmMuseo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

GHIRLANDAIO, DomenicoPortrait of Giovanna Tornabuoni (detail)1489-90Mixed technique on panel. 77 x 49 cmMuseo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid _Gallery, The Masterpieces (2)

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GHIRLANDAIO, DomenicoPortrait of Giovanna Tornabuoni

This superb panel is a fine example of fifteenth-century Florentine portraiture. Artists of the time followed classical dictates: body proportions were idealised while faces left devoid of expression were expected to convey character. In this half-length portrait, the sitter appears in strict profile, with her arms bent and her hands clasped together. In the background, a

selection of personal belongings appears within a simple architectural frame. The cartellino to the right bears part of an epigram by Martial and the date of his death in Roman numerals. The model has been identified as Giovanna Tornabuoni on the basis of a medallion by Niccolò Fiorentino showing her likeness and her name. She is also portrayed full

length in the Visitation fresco painted by Ghirlandaio for the Tornabuoni chapel in the church of Santa Maria Novella (Florence).

BALDUNG GRIEN, Hans Portrait of a Woman

Hans Baldung Grien was Dürer’s most gifted pupil, and an artist who soon developed a distinctive style of his own. While his output was varied and extensive, this panel is his only surviving female portrait. Here, the influence of another great German master, Lucas Cranach the Elder, is perceptible in details of the sitter’s clothing and accessories, such as the

plumed hat and the hairnet of pearls. Yet it remains a wholly enigmatic portrait, in that historians have failed to agree on the lady’s identity. It is now widely thought that it is an abstract representation, the idealised figure of a woman rather than the portrait of a specific person.

RUBENS, Peter PaulVenus at her Toilet

Rubens was the most outstanding of all Flemish painters, and a leading exponent of Baroque art. The Toilet of Venus is one of his copies of an original by Titian—now lost—which belonged to the Spanish royal collections. This provenance is supported by two significant details: the pearl bracelet and the ring on Venus’ left little finger, both of which appeared in Titian’s painting. An original version close to the one by Titian is now at the National Gallery of Washington, and there is another canvas by Rubens in the Liechtenstein Collection in

Vaduz. The Flemish painter’s subtlety of execution and superb mastery of colour are the most distinctive features of his style.

CARAVAGGIOSt Catherine of Alexandria

This painting was almost certainly commissioned in Rome by Caravaggio’s first patron, Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte. Captured in a strikingly natural pose, the figure of St Catherine has been identified as Fillide Melandroni, a celebrated courtesan of the time. Richly dressed in robes befitting a princess, and kneeling on a cushion, she gazes out at the

viewer surrounded by the attributes of her martyrdom: the breaking-wheel, the sword with which she was beheaded and the martyr’s palm. The dramatic lighting of the scene creates a chiaroscuro effect characteristic of Caravaggio, whose approach to light and volume—evident in this canvas—was to have considerable impact both in Italy and throughout Europe.

CARPACCIO, VittorePortrait of a Knight

Young Knight in a Landscape is one of the earliest examples of a full-length portrait in European painting. The canvas, signed and dated by Carpaccio on a cartellino to the right of the figure, was attributed to Dürer until 1919. A number of hypotheses have been advanced regarding the identity of the figure. The motto Malo mori quam foedari (better to die than be

defiled) placed beside a short-tailed weasel suggests that he may be a knight of the Order of the Ermine. The most widely-accepted view, however, is that the knight was in fact Francesco Maria della Rovere, 3rd Duke of Urbino. There is something rather troubling about both the young knight, dressed in armour and about to unsheathe his sword, and the landscape in

which he is placed, with its meticulously-executed flora and fauna containing allusions to good and evil.

CRANACH, HansHercules at the Court of Omphale

Hans Cranach here depicts an episode from the life of Hercules, who according to Greek legend murdered his friend Iphitus in a struggle for power and who was thus punished by Hermes, who sold him to the court of Queen Omphale where he had to remain as a slave for three years.

The atmosphere in the painting is cool and distant, both with regard to the colour range and to the type of interaction between the figures. Cranach depicts Hercules seated on a wooden bench, surrounded by three courtly women and subjected to female rule, despite his celebrated physical strength. None of the women wears any distinctive item of dress or adornment for which reason it has been suggested that they are the queen’s ladies-in-waiting. There are versions of this composition by Lucas Cranach the Elder, but this one has

been attributed to his son Hans due to the date and to the presence of the initials “HC” and the monogram of a serpent. Other depictions of this subject by Hans Cranach include one formerly in the Kaiser Friedrich Museum, Berlin (lost in World War II), and various versions in which there are differences in the female figures surrounding Hercules.

DÜRER, AlbrechtChrist Among the Doctors

Dürer was the leading representative of German Renaissance art, and a key advocate of new ideas in Northern Europe. This panel was executed in Venice, during his second visit to Italy—where he was hailed as a consummate artist—and it has been identified as the painting referred to in a letter from Dürer to his friend Willibald Pirckheimer, the Nuremberg

humanist. In its use of half-length figures and the arrangement of heads around a focal point formed by the child’s face and hands, the composition clearly echoes contemporary Italian painting. Thus, the German artist skilfully blends the two Renaissance worlds of Northern Europe and Italy. The panel is dated and signed with Dürer’s anagram on the slip of paper

protruding from the book in the foreground.

HOLBEIN, Hans the YoungerPortrait of Henry VIII of England

Portraiture was the most popular genre in sixteenth-century England, and indeed one of the few available to artists following the schism between the Church of Rome and the Church of England, of which Henry VIII became head. This likeness of the famous Tudor king is a magnificent example of Holbein’s remarkable style, characterised by a

monumental rendering of figures which are nonetheless endowed with considerable psychological depth. In this markedly linear portrait, Holbein uses the frontal pose of the regal model and the position of his hands to convey the sitter’s powerful personality and majestic bearing.

Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

The Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum or simply the Thyssen, is an art museum in Madrid, Spain, located near the Prado Museum at one of city's main boulevards. It is known as part of the

"Golden Triangle of Art", which also includes the Prado and the Reina Sofia national galleries. The Thyssen-Bornemisza fills the historical gaps in its counterparts' collections: in the Prado's

case this includes Italian primitives and works from the English, Dutch and German schools, while in the case of the Reina Sofia it concerns Impressionists, Expressionists, and European

and American paintings from the 20th century.

With over 1,600 paintings, it was once the second largest private collection in the world after the British Royal Collection. A competition was held to house the core of the collection in 1987-88

after Baron Thyssen, having tried to enlarge his Museum in Villa Favorit', searched for a location in Europe.

Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid_Picture Gallery, The Masterpieces (2)

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