Rembrandt, Rubens, Gainsborough and the Golden Age of Painting in Europe from the Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky
Orlando Museum of Art
January 25 – May 25, 2014
Tremendous changes swept Europe between 1600 and 1800, the years in which the art in this exhibition was produced. Religious upheavals transformed the way people thought about and utilized art. Trade routes to faraway lands, such as China and India, became more established, ensuring a steady stream of exotic goods for European consumers. Advances in the sciences transformed long held views on the way the universe worked and the place of humans within that universe. Technical aspects of art making were honed and codified, as art academies grew in number and power.
These exciting times resulted in a golden age of European painting. The number of artists and the number of art collectors grew exponentially during this period, as the fine arts reached an increasingly wider audience. This exhibition will feature 71 paintings from this remarkable period by Rembrandt van Rijn, Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony Van Dyck, Jan Steen, Jacob van Ruisdael, William Hogarth, Thomas Gainsborough and Pompeo Batoni, among many others.
Comprised of the major genres of painting that were popular at this time – portraits, religious paintings, landscapes, scenes of everyday life, still lifes and interpretations of classical antiquity – this exhibition will illustrate both the people and the objects that made the two centuries between 1600 and 1800 such a rich cultural age. Highlighting work from Italy, France, Spain, Flanders, the Netherlands, Germany and England, this exhibition will illustrate how the tremendous changes in religion and science, coupled with the economic growth that swept Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries, gave way to a period of incredible artistic creation.
Previous Venue: The Art Museum at the University of Kentucky
Images and Credits:
Paolo de’Matteis, The Adoration of the Shepherds, Oil on Canvas, 60 x 50 in., Collection of the Speed Art Museum, Gift of the Charter Collectors
Rembrandt van Rijn, Portrait of a Forty-Year-Old Woman, possibly Marretje Cornelisdr van Grotewal, 1634, Oil on panel, 27 7/16 x 22 in., Collection of the Speed Art Museum, Purchased with funds contributed by individuals, corporations and the entire community of Louisville, as well as the Commonwealth of Kentucky
Jean Jacques François Lebarbier, Helen and Paris, 1799, Oil on canvas, 34 x 40 in., Collection of the Speed Art Museum, Gift of the Charter Collectors
Peter Paul Rubens, The Princes of the Church Adoring the Eucharist, about 1626-1627, Oil on panel, 26 1/4 x 18 5/16 in., Collection of the Speed Art Museum, Gift in memory of George W. Norton IV, by his mother, Mrs. George W. Norton, Jr. and his aunt, Mrs. Leonard T. Davidson
Hendrick van Somer, Saint Jerome, 1651, Oil on canvas, 39 3/4 x 49 1/2 in., Collection of the Speed Art Museum, Gift of the Charter Collectors with funds from the Bequest of Jane Morton Norton
More images:
ANTHONY VAN DYCK
Flemish, 1599-1641
Portrait of a Woman
Oil on canvas
THOMAS GAINSBOROUGH
English, 1727-1788
Portrait of Mrs. John Hallam
Oil on canvas
LOUIS MICHAEL VAN LOO
French, 1707-1771
Madame de la Croix van Crucius
Oil on canvas
CHARLES-ANTOINE COYPEL
French, 1694-1752
The Education of the Virgin
Oil on canvas
Portrait of Madame Adélaïde
Adélaïde Labille-Guiard
Related exhibition:
Glimpses into the Golden Age at the Cornell Fine Arts Museum on the campus of Rollins College near downtown Winter Park, FL, January 4–May 11, 2014.
The exhibition showcases works from the permanent collection of CFAM that illustrate the social, political, and religious changes in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe. Coinciding strategically with a presentation of Old Master paintings on view at the Orlando Museum of Art—Rembrandt, Rubens, Gainsborough and the Golden Age of Painting from the Collection of the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Kentucky—the show features works by some of the same artists.
Images and Credits:
Louis Michel van Loo (French, 1707–1771)
Portrait of the Comtesse de Beaufort, c. 1760
Oil on canvas
50 x 40 in.
Gift of the Honorable Marilyn Logsdon Mennello and
Michael A. Mennello, in honor of Rollins College
president Rita Bornstein
1995.01.P
Thomas Gainsborough (English, 1727–1788)
Portrait of Gaëtan Apolline Balthazar Vestris, c. 1781–1782
Oil on canvas
12 1/2 x 10 3/8 in.
Bequest from the estate of Edmund L. Murray
1983.14.P
Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo (Italian, 1727–1804)
St. John Gualbert (Contemplating the Crucifix), c. 1753
Oil on canvas
24 1/2 x 17 3/4 in.
Gift of the Myers Family, and Mr. and Mrs. John C. Myers,
Jr., R'42, and June Reinhold Myers, R'41
1961.04.P
