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This week we move on to European art at the Wadsworth. For previous posts on the Wadsworth, click here.

The Morgan Wing has paintings arranged in tier on tier, in the manner of European galleries of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. (See painting by Panini below.) I’m not sure how the staff chose which paintings to hang next to each other, but the room looks very impressive and surprisingly coherent. On the other hand, it’s difficult to study the separate works, much less take photos!

To identify the paintings, you have to match the paintings to the labels on stands such as this one.

1749: Giovanni Paolo Panini, Picture Gallery of Cardinal Silvio Valenti Gonzaga

Paintings were typically displayed this way in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, in private collections and at the French Salon. Panini did a number of paintings of similar galleries. I suppose I shouldn’t complain about not being able to see the higher paintings in the Morgan Wing: in this gallery shown by Panini, the walls must be half again as high.

Mid-1600s?: Carlo Dolci (1616-1687), St. Sebastian

Dolci specialized in religious paintings. Like many Baroque artists, he’s done an amazing job of representing glowing skin. (See Rubens’s work in Innovators in Painting.) The close-up view and the somber tones are reminiscent of Caravaggio (1571-1610), who had no students but a helluva lot of followers and imitators. (See his work in Innovators in Painting.)

Ca. 1625-1675: Evaristo Baschenis (workshop of), Still Life with Musical Instruments

Baroque still lifes have a sharpness and clarity that I find very appealing. It helps that in this case, the subject (musical instruments) appeals as well … Baschenis (1617-1677), an Italian from Bergamo, was famous for this type of subject. The painting contains none of the reminders of mortality that the Dutch often snuck into their Baroque still lifes.

1801: Constance Mayer, Self-Portrait with Artist’s Father

Mayer (Marie-Françoise-Constance Mayer-La Martinière, 1775-1821) trained with Greuze, whose works are often cloyingly sentimental. She eventually studied with Jacques-Louis David (an eminent Neoclassicist) and adapted his sharper style, but she still painted rather sentimental subjects. This painting has a didactic edge: its full title is Self-Portrait with Artist’s Father: He Points to a Bust of Raphael, Inviting Her to Take This Celebrated Painter as a Model.

The Wadsworth’s painting reminds me of a portrait by Marie Denise Villers at the Metropolitan Museum, also dating to 1801. Like this painting, it was once attributed to a male artist, because who’d’a thunk a woman could paint.

As usual, the painting looks better with its frame.

Early 1800s?: Fyodor Alekseyev, Reception of Count Gergy at the Ducal Palace, Venice

According to the Wadsworth’s label, this is a copy of a painting by Canaletto. After he studied for a few years in Italy, contemporaries dubbed Alekseyev (1753-1824), a native of St. Petersburg, the “Russian Canaletto”. Tsar Paul I assigned him to create views of the streets and architecture of Moscow (here and here). Moscow is a long way from Venice, architecturally and spiritually.

1834: John Trumbull, The Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker’s Hill, June 17, 1775

We’ve seen two of Trumbull’s works in the Wadsworth’s American galleries: his portrait of Jeremiah and Daniel Wadsworth and a view of Niagara Falls.

This is the first of Trumbull’s grand paintings celebrating the Revolutionary War. Trumbull was serving in the Continental Army when he saw this scene play out at the Battle of Bunker Hill. He painted it in the grand European manner, modelled on The Death of General Wolfe, a 1770 painting by Benjamin West (an ex-pat American). Trumbull made several copies of The Death of General Warren, one of which is at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

Orazio Andreoni, Pereat (Let him perish), 1892

This sculpture stands in the hallway near the Morgan Wing. Rather than showing a Roman gladiator in the arena at a critical moment, Andreoni shows two women who behave very differently, but both of whom fiercely condemn the man to death. It’s an interesting sculpture from all angles and shows a good knowledge of anatomy, including gestures and expressions that convey emotions.

The modern equivalent would, I think, be cancelletur (let him be cancelled / crossed out / obliterated).

In case haven’t guessed that they’re giving their verdict at a gladiatorial contest, the artist has given represented a helmet and sword on the base of the pedestal, and a bas relief on one side of it.

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