after Petrus Christus' Portrait of a Young Girl ii

 Sandra Rauch, "SpaceWomen" after Petrus Christus, 2000 

The artist Sandra Rauch series "SpaceWomen" is conceived from portraits of Renaissance women using a photomechanical style she created. The works are on canvas using painting, photography and printing techniques. Each is a little over 27 inches wide and 3 feet high.

 another Rauch work after Petrus Christus

Sandra Rauch, "SpaceWomen" after Simonetta Vespucci by Piero di Cosimo 

 Sandra Rauch, "Space Women," from the "Portrait of a Young Woman" attributed to the Pollaiuolo brothers

( continued from an earlie post here)

all of these works by Rauch and others from the series are available at  Auctionata here

 

Portrait of a Young Girl i

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As mentioned before, Petrus Christus' Portrait of a Young Girl. (c. 1470), is one of my favorite portraits, & like other great portraits she takes much abuse by would be artists, and commercialism. I'll not add to her debauchery by including any of them here.
She is-perfection, and gratefully there are some perfect homages to her.

I've always felt Picasso-whose paintings of Velasquez's Las Meninas (there are 57) was a true acolyte of the master- in praise of  that painting-a deconstruction of its complexity.

As to a Christus redux-there is no such Picasso- but here- in his 1954 portrait of Sylvette Davis, he's playing with her. The shape of the truncated hennin worn by our Young Girl emphasizes Sylvette's beautiful face and hair & her sloe-eyes seen to imitate Christus's sitter.

In accord with Picasso & his "menina" complex-another celebrated Spaniard Manolo Valdes paints the maids over-and over. Not only Velasquez-but as it turns out Petrus Christus' Young Girl...has been a subject for Valdes. It's no surprise then that Valdes gives our Young Girl all the reverence found in his las meninas. 

Here She is in the June issue of AD, residing over a Steven Gambrel designed Long Island family room.

at AD here

His Menina residing in the late decorator Henri Samuel's office.

 
There is more Christus Petrus and the Young Girl to come-later in the week.

10 Portraits

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A recent post by Mark Ruffner writing the blog All Things Ruffnerian-prompted me to take up this challenge to cull through countless Portraits of Women & fantasize - If I could own 10 ?, which would I choose? Mark followed suit after Yvette of In So Many Words-did the same. You can see where this is going... While I still stretch my imagination on where to hang them & worry about negotiating with the Met, the Hermitage and likewise-I found narrowing down my choices difficult. No portrait-its value-its obscurity or its notoriety has been excluded. A few were easy-sorting and narrowing it to a mere 10 virtually impossible.

Pure fantasy-but doesn't it exercise the eye? Force us to edit-in a world where pinning, tumbling,blogging,linking-blinking tweeting-etc etc. allow us to gluttonous Excess?. Of course seeing Mark's picks and Yvette's IT is Temptation to say-"oh  yes, That one," but that would have been too easy. I must say it shocked me that some of my favorite portrait painters-Boldini, Whistler, Helleu did not make My List-nor did Zubaran-I immediately excluded his paintings of Saints-choosing just ONE would be treasonous-and choosing 10-unfair.


(The 10-in no particular order & linked in the text with insights about the work)

Petrus Christus, Portrait of a Young Girl

 c 1470.

what can I say? it might be my favorite of them all. It fits the Bacon quote at the heading of this experiment like no other.

El Greco's Lady in a Fur Wrap

c.1580

El Greco? Yes, one of his mysterious paintings of women-there are few. Uncharacteristic,yet his brush is evident-and while there are disputes about that-it's all the more reason to want it.

 Ingres' Mademoiselle Rivière

 c.1805

Ingres, for me the Master portrait painter-this is one of two Ingres paintings I've included. Can you deny it?

 Liotard's Portrait of Marie Fargues, his wife

 c. 1749

This portrait satisfies all things- sitter, dress, complexity of patterns, book, flowers and mirror. The 18th century was a period where women like Mary Wortley Montague were forging paths of individualism and leaving brilliant trails of their lives in memoirs and letters. Liotard painted many women of the period in Eastern dress. Almost any of Liotard's paintings would suffice-I would be content with 10 of them.

Sir Joshua Reynold's Mrs. Baldwin

c. 1782

Another painter I would not leave off any list-Reynolds and again it  is the 18th century with its certain brand of  Beauty and its allure of Exoticism.

Ingres' The Comtesse D'Haussonville, née Louise de Broglie

c.1845

It's charms are evident.the Comtesse d' Haussonville, grand-daughter of Madame de Stael- one of the most fascinating women in Europe," was also a remarkable person in her own right.
(I've written about her here & Ingres here)

Sargent's Madame X,  Virginie Gautreau

 

c.1884

Sargent. This portrait- his most memorable and he considered his best- was also his most controversial. Of course I would pick this one.Virginie Gautreau was not happy with the portrait-it revealed too much-much too much. Eager to paint her Sargent wrote a friend, "I have a great desire to paint her portrait and have reason to think she would allow it and is waiting for someone to propose this homage to her beauty. If you are 'bien avec elle' and will see her in Paris, you might tell her I am a man of prodigious talent." Books have been written about the painting. Sargent is another great favorite and I've devoted many posts to my intrigue with Sargent in a series called seeking Sargent -where images today remind me of his work, here.

I have a lithograph of Sargent by William Rothenstein  I love.

Portrait of Emilie Flöge, by Gustav Klimt

c. 1902

Model, muse and partner-Floge and Klimt were priest and priestess in turn of the century Vienna when everything was wonderful and art was everything.

 Balthus' "Japanese woman with red table," Countess Setzuko Klossowska de Rola,the artist's wife.

 c. 1967

This painting until recently was owned by Helene Rochas and sold at auction this fall. I wrote about it here.

Picasso's Nusch Éluard 

c. 1938

Picasso painted Nusch Elard numerous times-muse to the Surrealists, artist in her own right. The great painter painting a painter with a personal story as intriguing as the great one himself- no wonder he adored her. Picasso is the great painter of all time-here-Barbara of It's About Time shows you why-and would have me tossing out this entire list to have 10 portraits on scraps of paper with "Picasso" signed in the corner.

& No list is worth listing- without adding 1 to-

Lady with an Ermine (Cecilia Gallerani) - Leonardo da Vinci

c.1490

 

If it couldn't be a Lady with dog-a Renaissance ermine will do.

& as dual portraits go...

who could resist

 this portrait of  Monsieur & Mademoiselle?

Liotard's "Monsieur Levett and Mademoiselle Glavani in Turkish costume

or 
Sargent's Mr. and Mrs. I. N. Phelps Stokes, 1897
it is another favorite Sargent- with two fascinating subjects

I've written about Edith here

 & Yes, I fantasize about 10 Men too-

alas,Correggio's fetching Portrait of a Young Man did not make the cut.

Now-what about you? Do you have a favorite from my 10? your own?




.

together

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CHADO RALPH RUCCI & PETRUS CHRISTUS

American Master & Flemish Master

read little augury tortoise here


image from style.com

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Tortoise or Hare?

petrus christus~ flemish master(1410-1472)

I am a self described Tortoise.

I admit it.
Deliberate.
Sure.
Slow and Steady.
Grounded, but with head in the clouds. Eastern mythology tells us the turtle's magic united heaven and earth-a creation of nature carrying its round shell over the ground-the Heavens, and underneath-flat-the Earth.

Hard shell (Well?)

Soft on the inside (Well?)

I even have a bit of a collection to prove it. Here are a few favorites for one or another reasons.

the Turtle shell on the stand is a Guatemalan turtle I named Mariela- after my Guatemalan housekeeper who gifted it to me.
Her name was Mariela too.
I was so touched that she had noticed-Well I guess she noticed or maybe...
I was just so slow it reminded her of me. I didn't ask- It might have spoiled everything.

Another very nice tortoise

I have some Tortoises that reside in the yarden. One you must see at some point is quite huge- taking two yardeners to just get it to budge. Purchased from a designer's estate sale- it is supposedly a Japanese Tortoise. The designer's mother was Japanese and the turtle was too. He has only moved three times to my knowledge- from the estate sale to my Garden and then to my yarden. I've moved twice- So the Japanese Tortoise came with me- But...

He was so slow-
He needed help, two yardeners had to move him- as I said.

Some of these outdoor turtles have lost their heads- I prefer to think that the said Head is safely inside the shell...

Some of my turtles are on little sheets of paper...

here are a few of them.

Since we know the fable by heart- here is the French poem adapted from Aesop by La Fontaine~

Le Lièvre et la Tortue

Rien ne sert de courir, il faut partir à point :
Le lièvre et la tortue en sont un témoignage.

« Gageons, dit celle-ci, que vous n’atteindrez point
Sitôt que moi ce but. ─ Sitôt ? êtes vous sage ?
Repartit l’animal léger.
Ma commère, il vous faut purger
Avec quatre grains d’ellébore.
─ Sage ou non, je parie encore. »
Ainsi fut fait ; et de tous deux
On mit près du but les enjeux.
Savoir quoi, ce n’est pas l’affaire,
Ni de quel juge l’on convint.
Notre Lièvre n’avait que quatre pas à faire ;
J’entends de ceux qu’il fait lorsque, prêt d’être atteint,
Il s’éloigne des chiens, les renvoie aux calendes,
Et leur fait arpenter les landes.
Ayant, dis-je, du temps de reste pour brouter,
Pour dormir, et pour écouter
D’où vient le vent, il laisse la tortue
Aller son train de sénateur.
Elle part, elle s’évertue ;
Elle se hâte avec lenteur.
Lui cependant méprise une telle victoire,
Tient la gageure à peu de gloire,
Croit qu’il y va de son honneur
De partir tard. Il broute, il se repose ;
Il s’amuse à toute autre chose
Qu’à la gageure. À la fin quand il vit
Que l’autre touchait presque au bout de la carrière,
Il partit comme un trait ; mais les élans qu’il fit
Furent vains : la tortue arriva la première.

« Eh bien, lui cria-t-elle, avais-je pas raison ?
De quoi vous sert votre vitesse ?
Moi l’emporter ! et que serait-ce
Si vous portiez une maison ? »

Jean de La Fontaine,Livre VI.

which are you?

illustration from Arthur Rackham of Aesop's fable the Tortoise & the Hare

more paper tortoises...


let me just say as a Tortoise...

I know and love Hares. They are everywhere.

I admit- I am attracted to Hares.

Some of my dearest friends are Hares.

I once dated a German (well ) Tortoise-Hare. does that tell you something?

and a Russian Tortoise...

when walking one very cold evening- he asked me- A Tortoise-to slow down!

As a family we inbred-my father was a Hare, Mother a Tortoise...

Though my brother earned the nickname Pooka, you know- Harvey?, he is very much a Tortoise. He is father to a Tortoise and a Hare.

My brother KC takes after my father- all Hare. all the time.

I've never had ONE Hare rant or humiliate me about my state of existence, never had a Hare harm a hair on my head...

We get along beautifully- We have evolved since the feudal days of our ancestors.

Tortoises DO live a Long time you know...

I sometimes do have to tell one of my particularly Lovely Long Legged Hares to slow it down a bit. I am sure a grimace emanates from one OR both of our faces...

But we end up pretty much together at the end of the day-usually sharing a glass of wine- or I sometimes watch my Hare sip hers...

I'm just happy she's sitting still.

As I said- I love Hares and I will NEVER be heard to say...

Slow and Steady wins the Race.

and Yes, half the fun is getting there.