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Amitie: Russell and Van Gogh
The legend of John Peter Russell has many attractive aspects, but none more so than his friendship with Vincent Van Gogh.
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A maiolica plate signed ‘F.R.’
By no means every plate in early 16th century Italy told a story.
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The development of the collections of decorative arts in the National Gallery of Victoria
The National Gallery of Victoria is unique amongst the public galleries of Australia in its efforts to build up a fine and representative collection of decorative arts
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Recent additions to the collection of Greek vases
For the Greek vase collection in the National Gallery of Victoria the year between the spring of 1979 and the winter of 1980 must be regarded as an annus mirabilis, since…
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Eroticism, myth and the bullfight: Picasso’s Femme Torero I and Corrida
La corrida toute entière baigne dans une atmosphere érotique – Michel Leiris, Miroir de la tauromachie,
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Cleopatra, pearls and extravagance: Tiepolo’s Banquet of Cleopatra
When Boccaccio wrote his book, De Claris Mulieribus (Concerning Famous Women) (after 1351), Cleopatra was the epitome of Luxuria, that medieval vice pictured as a bejewelled naked women, the embodiment of extravagant…
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The Synnot children by Joseph Wright of Derby
Among various anecdotes narrated by Pliny the Elder that reveal the illusionistic skills of the Greek painters, the one recounting how Zeuxis was deluded by the drapery painted by his rival Parrhasios…
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The Flemington Cup
In October 1984 the National Gallery of Victoria successfully bid for a ‘Rare and important hallmarked Australian silver and gilt presentation cup’ at auction.1R L. Pickles &
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Henry Fuseli’s Milton when a youth
This Melbourne painting (fig. 1)* belongs to a group of pictures by Fuseli depicting episodes in the life of Milt
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Bacino di S. Marco: from the Piazzetta
In his chapter on the topography of Turner, John Ruskin defines history painting and that of topography as the ‘most precious things; in many cases more useful to the human race than…
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Paraphernalia for the Ceremonial Ball Game in Ancient Mexico
It hardly occurs to us that most of our modern ball games could not be played without one essential ingredient, rubber, the origin of which can be traced to pre-Hispanic Mexic
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A profile portrait of a Renaissance woman in the National Gallery of Victoria
In keeping with Dr Ursula Hoff’s own practice and with the meticulous training she has urged upon her students, this short article offers thoughts arising from an examination of a single artefactR
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Sebastiaen Vrancx’s Crossing of the Red Sea
The recent acquisition of Sebastiaen Vrancx’s Crossing of the Red Sea (fi
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An Australian student of Frank Brangwyn: Jessie C. A. Traill in London and Belgium, 1907–1908
Since the revival of interest in printmaking and the simultaneous rediscovery of Australian women artists in the 1970s, the name Jessie Traill has been treated with growing respect by curators, collectors and…
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Look homeward Angel: Marshall Claxton’s emigrant
Marshall Claxton’s painting An emigrant’s thoughts of home (1859) (