Friday, December 14, 2012

Who painted this #8

This is the eighth "Who Painted This?".  The still life category is generating the most nominations so far in the "The Best Picture on an Art Blog Awards" so I thought we should have a still life this week.

Please read The Rules (below) for how to submit your answer.

Who Painted This? #8
How to Participate in "Who Painted This? #8"

PLEASE make sure you read the rules before posting a comment - and ONLY POST ON THIS BLOG what you think is the answer.  Do NOT post the answer on my Making A Mark page on Facebook

THE RULES for participating in this challenge are as follows:

This is about using brains not technology - so please do not "cheat".  This is what you can and cannot do to search for the answer online
    • PLEASE do NOT use any of the "image matching" technology which exists(eg Chrome or Tineye) - that's just plain lazy and not the point of the challenge! My suspicions will be raised by those who appear to know the answer a bit too quickly and/or fail to identify themselves!
    • You can use search enquiries - using WORDS ONLY to search on Google or any other search engine or to interrogate databases of images
    • You can look at as many books or online art databases as you like!
  1. Do NOT leave the answer as a comment on Facebook.  If you do I will delete the comment and you will NOT be declared the winner.
  2. Leave your answer as a comment on this blog. (IF CORRECT IT WILL NOT BE PUBLISHED until just before the next challenge) 
    • You can leave a guess - and if I don't publish the name you know you're on the right lines even if you don't yet have all the details
    • Howls of frustration can also be left while you try and work it out....... 
  3. In your comment, for #7 you must tell me ALL of the following:
    • the title of the drawing
    • the name of the artist who drew this picture
    • the date it was created
    • the media used
    • where it lives now
    • how you know all this eg how did you do your search 
  4. The Winner! The first identifiable person (ie no anonymous guesses) who, in my judgement, is the first person to get to the answer by fair means will get a mention and a link to their website or blog (or both) in:
    • my very popular weekly blog post "Who's made a mark this week?"
    • the post with next week's challenge.
Clues: I will leave a clue - as a comment on the post - if you're not not getting anywhere in the first 24 hours.

Publication - and non-publication - of answers / comments: Here's how the comments work:
  • All comments are moderated and I read ALL the comments prior to publication 
  • The correct answers (in full or part) are published a week later - assuming somebody actually gets the answer!  Which means if your comment is not published you know you could be on the right lines.  Plus it also means others can have the enjoyment of the challenge even if they are probably too late to win.
  • The comments are also published in the order they were left not the order that I open them - which means you can all see who got the right answer first and provided all the details.
  • Hence AFTER publication of this post and BEFORE the day of the publication of the next post (i.e. next Friday) I ONLY publish all the incorrect answers and all the howls of frustration! 
Who Painted This #7 - The Answer

A study of a woman's hands by Leonardo da Vinci
There are two firsts this week
  • The person who posted the first correct answer as to the name and the artist in Who painted this? #6 was Rose Welty (Rose Welty Art Studio) in North Carolina who got the answer about 30 minutes after it was posted.  
  • The first people to get the correct answer for ALL  the data required - as per the Royal Collection - were Miles and Pippa, Studio Blue Sea who are sailing and are currently off the coast of Portugal.
The moral of the story - always go back to the original source if you can to get the correct provenance!

Here are all the details I was after in the answer (except for those in brackets).  I'm using the details provided by the Royal Collection.
  1. Title of the artwork - A study of a woman's hands
  2. Name of the artist - Leonardo da Vinci (born Vinci 1452 - died Amboise 1519)
  3. Date it was created - c.1490 (ie later than the date given on Wikipedia)
  4. Media used - Metalpoint with white heightening over charcoal on pale buff prepared paper; 21.5 x 15.0 cm (again - slightly different to Wikipedia)
  5. Current Home - Royal Collection
This is the description of the work on the Royal Collection website
A study of a woman's hands folded over her breast. The right hand is holding an object between the finger and thumb. Below is a study of folded hands. In the upper right area there is a slight sketch of a grotesque head in profile to the right.

This beautiful drawing comprises two separate studies of crossed hands, each concentrating on one hand only. It may have been a study for Leonardo’s small portrait of a Lady with an ermine in Krakow, Poland. The sitter’s attitude in the painting is highly original; although the hands in the drawing do not correspond in pose with those in the painting, they are identical in type, long, slender and elegant, and it is possible that the drawing was a first study for the portrait.
Check out this link to see a detailed and annotated image of Lady with an Ermine.  The author comments on Cecilia's disproportionately large hands and Leonardo da Vinci's practice of making drawings of hands in his sketchbooks.

Here are the other 26 people who got it right. There are so many I've excluded the few more who got partial answers only.
  1. Roger Brown My Botswana Art
  2. ~im just only me~
  3. Janna Kumi
  4. Sophie
  5. David Clinch
  6. Sue
  7. Vandy 
  8. bosveldr 
  9. CrimsonLeaves
  10. Meera Rao
  11. Rohit Kulkarni
  12. Colours and Textures
  13. jd 
  14. Teri 
  15. Alastair Fraser 
  16. Irene
  17. bonne destination
  18. SpinningDownUnder
  19. Candys Home Patch 
  20. Mark
  21. Irene
  22. Michael Gage
  23. Michael Whynot
  24. Doone

11 comments:

  1. Picture #8 - I think it's by Jan van Kessel, but do not know the name of the picture.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This one proved to be a bit more difficult.I spent a lot of time searching for oysters on a black plate,and still life oil paintings .But nothing matched the style of this painting until I spotted a painting with lobster,eels,and cats in it(I cant find the name of it yet).But there were many other similarities(Such as the empty spaces around each object)in that painting which were the same with this one,and which lead me to find the answer .

    Artist-Jan van Kessel.Title-Still life with oysters,flowers,fruits and animals.Date created-some time during the 17th century.Oil Painting,Size-42 x 77 cm.Currently located at the - Doria Pamphili Gallery

    ReplyDelete
  3. ok there are no comments yet so I'm guessing lots of people have already got this. I guessed this was 17th century Dutch or Flemish but google image search drew a blank, so I thought of where I had seen similar paintings and thought of flower paintings of that era in the Fitzwilliam in Cambridge where I am a frequent visitor. A search of their online collection for 17th century flowers revealed 50(!) possibilities, but Jan van Kessel was 2nd on the list. Google image search for him brought up the image, with various titles and no date so all I have is

    Jan van Kessel the Elder
    Still Life (with Oysters, (Flowers, Fruit and Animals))
    Oil on copper
    17th century
    Doria Pamphilj Gallery, Rome

    The paintings in the Fitzwilliam are stunning by the way.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Title: Still life with oysters, flowers, fruit and animals

    Name: Jan Van Kessel the Elder

    Date: Not listed. Wikipedia has him living: Jan van Kessel (Antwerp, 1626-idem, 1679)

    Medium: Oil

    Where it hangs: Galleria Doria Pamphilj
    http://www.doriapamphilj.it/uknatura.asp

    How I found it: Google search on all the bits in the painting, aided by my daughter when I became discouraged with my lack of success!

    Ruth Bosveld
    ruthbosveld@gmail.com
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/58422184@N04/

    ReplyDelete
  5. Just an addition. I think, from what's said, that the piece is oil on copper.

    Ruth

    ruthbosveld@gmail.com
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/58422184@N04/

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hello. I have to say that I'm having an awful good time with this. Here is what I found on this painting. It was done by Jan van Kessel. It is oil on canvas and called "Still Life with Oysters, Flowers, Fruits and Animals" It can be found in the Dorian Pamphilj Gallery in Italy. It was painted in the mid 17th century between 1626 and 1679, the life time of van Kessel. Could not find an exact date. I recognized the painting as an example of Flemish or Dutch still life and did a bit of googling until I found and example of the painting and it's name, then googled the name to find out where it is living now. Since I live on the West coast of the USA I know that I will not be the first in with the info but it has been fun anyway.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Got it! Took me ages. Going from Dutch/Flemish Renaissance painters, searching for oysters and dog (!), via names such as Jan de Heem, Frans Snyders, ended up with Jan van Kessel. And it finally turned up in the google image search under Jan van Kessel.
    http://www.doriapamphilj.it/uknatura.asp
    It is "Still Life with Oysters, Flowers, Fruit and Animals, Jan van Kessel the Elder (1626-1679). At the Galleria Doria Pamphilj.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hi, This is a correction to my first post. van Kessel painted the "Still Life" on copper not canvas. Like all things "internet" there may be more than one answer to each question :>)

    ReplyDelete
  9. This painting is
    Still Life with oysters, flowers, fruit and animals.
    by Jan van Kessel il Vecchio
    17th century
    Oil on canvas

    Doria Pamphilj Gallery in the Palazzo Doria Pamphilj in Rome

    I googled still life with various items in the painting.
    The oysters stood out to me as unusual with all the flowers and fruit,Bird didn't help, flowers and fruit did.

    ReplyDelete
  10. this one is harder than the last, and my results spottier. But I enjoyed the challenge. Also, I recognized the style of the the artists' little insect and vegetal paintings on white backgrounds from a newspaper clipping I saved years ago. A nice reminder of something I'd forgotten.


    the title of the drawing:
    the name of the artist who drew this picture: Jan van Kessel Sr. (Flemish)
    the date it was created: c. 1670
    the media used: oil?
    where it lives now:
    how you know all this eg how did you do your search: searched initially on "dutch still life" and refined from there (my memory is hazy)

    ReplyDelete
  11. – Still life with oysters, flowers, fruit and animals
    – Jan van Kessel the Elder
    – Painted c. 1650-1700
    – Oil on copper
    – Located in Galleria Doria Pamphilj, in Roma (Italia)
    – How I found it? More simple than I feared… The 17th flemish still life was obvious, and to go further, a simple research on the words "still life oysters fruits flowers birds dog" lead me to the right one!

    Cause you published no comment, I suppose all your readers have found the right answer! A bit late for mine, but I wanted to play as my manner to say thank you for your blog. Have a great Christmas, and a greater New Year!

    Sincerely. JBP

    ReplyDelete

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