#16th century european art

[collectionstilllife]

Joris Hoefnagel (Flemish, 1542-1601) • Still Life with Flowers, a Snail and Insects • 1589

[canvasmirror]

Carravagio (Italian, 1571-1610) • Bacchus • c. 1596 • Uffizi Gallery, Florence

This cannot be Carravagio, you say? You are correct. The self-portrait is hidden in the wine flask which is part of the composition of Carravagio's famous Bacchus painting, shown above.

Via an infrared technique called multispectral reflectography, researchers were able to identify a tiny man which they're fairly sure is Carravagio. He's at the easel holding a paintbrush. One can faintly see the outline the head.

More here

“All works, no matter what or by whom painted, are nothing but bagatelles and childish trifles… unless they are made and painted from life, and there can be nothing… better than to follow nature”

– Carravagio

[resplendentoutfit]

Joos van Cleve (Dutch, c. 1485-1540/1541) • Portrait of Eleanor of Austria • c. 1530 • Musée Condé, Oise, France

Details

The Resplendent Outfit: The outrageous, extravagant, sometimes humorous and often beautiful outfits worn by subjects of old portraits; captioned, as an attempt at satire; a little history occasionally thrown in the mix.

Outrageous

Extravagant ✅️

Humorous

Beautiful ✅️

[arthistoryanimalia]

For #GuineaPigAppreciationDay, the two earliest examples I've found of guinea pigs in the European visual record:

1. Painting attributed to Giovanni da Udine, n.d., artist active early 1500s to death in 1564

2. Drawing from the Felix Platter album, collected sometime between 1546-54

Attributed to Giovanni da Udine (Italian, 1487–1564) Head of a Guinea Pig oil on canvas laid on panel 6.5 x 7 in. (16.5 x 17.8 cm.) From Duke's Fine Art Auction catalog, 11th April 2013, Lot 215

Drawing collected by Felix Platter, to be used in Gessner's Historiae animalium. The drawings were made by several artists, mostly anonymous, and were collected between 1546 and 1558 (this one must date to no later than 1554 as it served as a reference for Gessner's woodcut published that year). Bijzondere collectie Universiteit van Amsterdam collection.

[solcattus]

Designs for a Dagger and Sheath, 1543

By Augustin Hirschvogel

[virgocurator]

The Book of Hours, The Trinity

Ink, pigments and gold on vellum

illuminated manuscript, ca. 16th century

[diemelusine]

Archduke Ernest of Austria (c. 1580) by Alonso Sánchez Coello. Museo del Prado.

[cimmerianweathers]

I went to the museum today.

[artandthebible]

Noli Me Tangere

Artist: Ludovico Mazzolino (Italian, 1480-1528)

Genre: Religious Art

Date: About 1525

Medium: Oil on Panel

Collection: Foncazione Brescia Musei, Brescia, Italy

Noli Me Tangere

Noli me tangere ('touch me not') is the Latin version of a phrase spoken, according to John 20:17, by Jesus to Mary Magdalene when she recognized him after His resurrection.

[art-allegory]

The Triumph of Truth

Artist: Hans von Aachen (German, 1552-1615)

Date: circa 1598

Medium: Oil on Copper

Collection: Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, Michigan, United States

On View in European: Medieval and Renaissance, Level 2, West Wing

[useless-catalanfacts]

This is the Concòrdies, Europe's second oldest pharmacopoeia and the first of its kind. It was printed in 1511 in Barcelona, Catalonia. The first European pharmacopoeia was printed in Florence (modern-day Italy) in 1498 after a larger amount in Islamic countries, but both have some important differences.

A pharmacopoeia is a book that contains the recipes for making medicines, to be used as a reference guide by the apothecaries who made the remedies. The apothecaries were the chemists who made the drugs, specialists in medicinal herbs, minerals, animal products and food.

On August 29th 1510, the king Ferdinand of Catalonia-Aragon gave Barcelona's Apothecaries Association the royal privilege of standardizing the recipes used for making drugs. Before this, doctors diagnosed their patients and told them what drugs to buy, but each apothecary made it in their way, which could have different amounts of each ingredient or different preparations. This could lead to results that weren't as good as expected.

You might have noticed that the book is titled "Concordie apothecarioru[m] Barchin[one] i[n] medicinis co[m]positis liber feliciter incipit" (more or less "Agreement of Barcelona's apothecaries on the compound medicines" in Latin), often shortened to "les Concòrdies" ("the Agreements" in Catalan). It's an "agreement" because the apothecaries came together to write the most effective recipes, which they then presented to the Barcelona Medicine Doctors' Association. Then, the doctors could object or not, and from the agreement between both experts resulted this book.

This is the first pharmacopoeia that was made by the apothecaries' idea, not following orders of a government, and the first pharmacopoeia written for and by the apothecaries (the book written in Florence was made by doctors to tell apothecaries what they wanted them to make). Thanks to their apothecaries' work, Barcelona's inhabitants were the first people in the Iberian peninsula to access homologated medicine. Soon, this book's rules were expanded to all of Catalonia.

The only remaining original copy from the 1511 edition is kept in the Museum of Catalan Pharmacology which belongs to the University of Barcelona. The whole book has been digitalized and is completely uploaded online: here's the link.

[morwynlefay]

a bit of fighting i did at a small games convention two weeks back

i’m in the polished 3/4s armour with the blue trunkhose

[galleryofart]

Florentine Street Scene with Twelve Figures (Sheltering the Traveler, One of the Seven Works of Mercy)

Artist: Anonymous

Date: 1540-1560, Florence

Medium: Oil on Panel

Collection: Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Description

Florentine street scene with twelve figures. Cityscape with travelers standing at a crossroads of two streets, probably in Florence. Formerly interpreted as the sheltering of travelers, one of the seven works of mercy.

[exploring-the-past]

Pulvis pyrius from Noua reperta (1590)

[arthistoryanimalia]

#TextileTuesday :

Textile Fragment with Unicorn, Deer, Centaur and Lion

Made in Scandinavia (possibly Sweden), c.1500

Wool intarsia & applique with gilt leather & linen embroidery

52 3/4 × 52 3/8 in. (134 × 133 cm)

The Met Cloisters 2011.430

“This textile features a combination of real and imaginary creatures. The inscription, only partially legible and apparently mixing Latin and Italian, invokes the name of Christ and the Church, indicating the cloth’s original use in a religious context.”

[solcattus]

Juno, 1596

By Hendrick Goltzius