CMA: European Painting and Sculpture
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CMA: European Painting and Sculpture
@cmaeuropeanpaint.bsky.social
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Sharing public domain works from the European Painting and Sculpture department of Cleveland Museum of Art.
Automated #artbot thanks to @andreitr.bsky.social and @botfrens.bsky.social
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Aurelius Antoninus Pius https://clevelandart.org/art/1939.160
Aurelius Antoninus Pius
November 29, 2025 at 7:26 PM
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Portrait of a Woman https://clevelandart.org/art/1949.545
Portrait of a Woman
November 29, 2025 at 5:18 PM
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Eve https://clevelandart.org/art/1946.429.2
Mauch straddled the late medieval and Renaissance traditions across his career. These small-scale statuettes, however, each made from a single piece of boxwood, stem from the most progressive strands of Renaissance art in southern Germany, closely connected to developments in both Italian and German bronze sculpture. The bodies reveal Mauch's careful study of human anatomy as well as a rapport with Albrecht Dürer's well-known print of the same subject.
November 29, 2025 at 2:02 PM
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Portrait of a Woman with a Dog https://clevelandart.org/art/2011.47
The unidentified sitter wears rich black fabric and a brown fur stole, a sheer white linen cap covers her head, an elaborate starched ruff rings her neck, her sleeves finish in <em>punto in aria</em> lace, and a prominent gold ring with a jewel appears on her right hand. The composition, weighted heavily to the right, implies a pendant portrait, yet to identified, probably depicting her husband.
November 29, 2025 at 11:36 AM
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Medal of Isotta degli Atti da Rimini (obverse) and (reverse) https://clevelandart.org/art/1986.66
Medal of Isotta degli Atti da Rimini (obverse) and (reverse)
November 29, 2025 at 10:04 AM
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Venus Discovering the Dead Adonis https://clevelandart.org/art/1965.19
Venus, the goddess of love, urged her mortal lover Adonis to hunt only the easiest game. Yet he insisted on pursuing boar, which eventually gored him to death. In this scene, Venus discovers the young man robbed of his youth, yet the painting eternally preserves him in a state of perfection. This paradox corresponds to wordplay in Italian poetry from the 1600s, with which many artists sought visual parallels in their work. This painting derives from a 1623 poem by Giovanni Battista Marino. The painter remains unknown, although the sophisticated literary reference, dramatic use of light, and vivid use of color demonstrate the artist’s awareness of trends converging in Naples in the mid 1600s.
November 28, 2025 at 6:49 PM
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Funerary Monument for the Marquis de Tourney (for the Chapel of the Château de la Falaise) https://clevelandart.org/art/2002.53
Delaistre created this sculpture for a funeral monument commissioned by the Marquis Gallyot de Tourny for himself and erected in the chapel of his chateau of La Falaise between 1787 and 1793. The young woman gestures with her left hand toward an urn bearing the inscription <em>Voila ce coeur qui nous a tant aimé</em> (Here is the heart which has loved so many of us). The sculpture follows a pattern that had become customary for such monuments in the last quarter of the century, with a single female figure dominating the design. Usually that figure was of an allegorical or religious subject. However, the marquis gave very precise instructions that she should instead be a <em>rosière</em>, a virtuous young woman chosen from the general population and awarded a garland of roses, hence the name given to the honoree. Saint Medard initiated this ceremony in AD 530, but when revived by the marquis in the 1700s, it was seen both as a reward of virtue and a symbol of a growing sympathy for democracy: the rosière was customarily a girl of rather humble circumstances, not an aristocrat.
November 28, 2025 at 4:39 PM
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Mars https://clevelandart.org/art/1964.421
Lacking the helmet and armor common to Mars in Roman iconography, this sculpture has also been described as a gladiator. The active, twisting pose of his body is typical of Giambologna’s models, and indicates that the artist intended the statue to be viewed in the round. Collectors prized small bronzes and often kept them in special rooms along with antiquities, coins, shells, and other curiosities. Easy to hold and arrange due to their small size, they were often appreciated through touch as well as sight.
November 28, 2025 at 2:54 PM
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Portrait of Frederick the Great, King of Prussia (reverse) https://clevelandart.org/art/1916.1881.b
Portrait of Frederick the Great, King of Prussia (reverse)
November 28, 2025 at 11:29 AM
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Portrait of a Man https://clevelandart.org/art/1942.1137
Portrait of a Man
November 28, 2025 at 9:47 AM
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Madonna and Child in Glory https://clevelandart.org/art/2011.2
Madonna and Child in Glory
November 27, 2025 at 6:37 PM
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Portrait of Agostino Barbarigo https://clevelandart.org/art/1928.16
Barbarigo served as second in command of the Venetian naval forces during the Battle of Lepanto, fighting against the Ottoman Empire on October 7, 1571. During the skirmish, Barbarigo was slain by a Turkish arrow, which he holds in the portrait.<br><br>Barbarigo’s identity is defined by his military prowess. In the 1500s, Venetian military portraits often portrayed the sitter in armor in a pose typical of a Roman emperor, creating a link to the valor and might of ancient armies.
November 27, 2025 at 4:42 PM
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Double-leaf Doors https://clevelandart.org/art/1942.2.13.b
Double-leaf Doors
November 27, 2025 at 1:14 PM
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Christ Crucified https://clevelandart.org/art/1972.350
Christ Crucified
November 27, 2025 at 8:57 AM
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The Grotto of Posillipo https://clevelandart.org/art/1976.97.2
Hubert Robert studied and worked in Italy from 1754–65. Upon returning to Paris, he entered the Royal Academy as an architectural painter and full member in 1766. His time in Italy would prove to be influential and classical architectural subjects would dominate his subsequent oeuvre. <em>Interior of the Colonnade of St. Peter's</em> is based on a drawing dated 1758, the same year that Pope Clement XIII Rezzonico was elected. Given his interest in classical subjects, Robert has antiquated his subject by aging the condition of the columns and including a soldier dressed in ancient Roman armor. Similarly, Robert imaginatively portrays the Grotto of Posillipo. Measuring over 2000 feet in length, this tunnel was carved from the volcanic rock by ancient Romans to connect Naples with Pozzuoli. While this passageway was improved by repaving and reinforcing the arches during the reign of Charles III of Naples (1734–59), this structure was never the grand tunnel Robert depicts with coffered vaults and engaged columns.
November 26, 2025 at 6:05 PM
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Allegory of Jealousy? https://clevelandart.org/art/1952.460
The meaning of a small blindfolded child wielding a knife at an elderly couple is uncertain. Instead of a myth or historical subject, it more likely personifies an emotion.
November 26, 2025 at 3:30 PM
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Virgin and Child with John the Baptist and Angels https://clevelandart.org/art/1916.792
Virgin and Child with John the Baptist and Angels
November 26, 2025 at 12:51 PM
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Tabernacle Relief with Flanking Angels https://clevelandart.org/art/1975.105
This relief once framed a tabernacle—a receptacle above and behind an altar for the safekeeping of the Eucharist. The inscription over the doorway, LOCHVS SANCTVS (Holy Place), and below, LAVS DEO (Praise God), confirm the relief’s intended purpose. Originally, a door at center, perhaps in gilt bronze, would have secured the tabernacle. The pose, costumes, and modeling of the flanking angels all suggest the hand of a gifted artist probably working under the influence of Tullio Lombardo, a brilliant Venetian marble sculptor.
November 26, 2025 at 11:30 AM
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Portrait of Cardinal Guillaume Dubois https://clevelandart.org/art/1967.17
Luxurious, flamboyant dress—a voluminous wrap of scarlet silk topped by a short fur cape—signals that the subject of Hyacinthe Rigaud’s portrait was clearly a man of consequence. Guillaume Dubois gained the favor of Louis XIV as tutor to his grandson, the future king Louis XV, and served as chief minister under Louis’s successors, the regent Duke of Orleans and Louis XV. Dubois was appointed a cardinal in the Catholic Church in 1721, a lofty aspiration at least partly motivated by political ambition: the title gave him the power to remove political adversaries with impunity. Dubois holds a letter with the words Au Roy (to the king), commemorating the moment he had the honor of proclaiming his former student as king.
November 26, 2025 at 8:17 AM
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Wooded and Hilly Landscape
https://clevelandart.org/art/1963.575
Ruisdael did not paint outdoors, but composed his paintings in the studio from drawings made in the open air. Unlike many other landscape painters, Ruisdael prized accurate representation of plant life, and botanists can consistently identify the precise species in his paintings, such as the oak trees here.
November 25, 2025 at 7:44 PM
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Study for "The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian" (for the Augustinian monastery at Diessen, Germany) https://clevelandart.org/art/1946.277
In 1739 a pair of monumental altarpieces by two Venetian painters (Giovanni Battista Tiepolo and Giambattista Pittoni) were installed in a church in southern Germany, part of a carefully orchestrated decorative program that included architecture, painting, sculpture, and decorative stuccowork. This sketch is Tiepolo’s initial design for his altarpiece, submitted for approval before beginning the final work. With quick, assured brushstrokes, he represents the Christian martyr Sebastian bound to a tree and shot with arrows, flooded with radiant light to symbolize his devotion to his faith.
November 25, 2025 at 5:27 PM
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Virgin and Child https://clevelandart.org/art/1916.1005
Virgin and Child
November 25, 2025 at 12:12 PM
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The Virgin and St. Francis with Christ Child https://clevelandart.org/art/1981.226
The Virgin and St. Francis with Christ Child
November 25, 2025 at 8:41 AM
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Portrait of William Powell https://clevelandart.org/art/2013.92
Portrait of William Powell
November 24, 2025 at 5:41 PM
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Double-Leaf Doors https://clevelandart.org/art/1942.2.12
Shifts in style and taste often result in changes to original architectural details. Rousseau painted these doors with imitation dark wood grain. Another craftsman later scraped off the dark color surrounding the classical designs. This set has recently been conserved.
November 24, 2025 at 3:48 PM