#walters art museum

[lionofchaeronea]

Moonlit Scene, Houses at Night, Léon Bonvin, 1864

[pointandshooter]

Hackerman House, Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, Maryland

photo: David Castenson

[arthistoryanimalia]

Happy #WorldAnteaterDay!

From House of Fabergé menagerie, here is a diamond-eyed jasper anteater figure purchased by The Walters Art Museum founder Henry Walters on a trip to St. Petersburg in 1900. Now in the museum’s permanent collection.

Anteater

House of Fabergé (Russian, est. 1842) (Manufacturer)

Peter Carl Fabergé (1846-1920)

c. 1900

jasper, diamonds

The Walters Art Museum

"This tiny diamond-eyed anteater was purchased by Henry Walters, founder of the Walters Art Museum, on a trip to St. Petersburg in 1900. The House of Fabergé began making hardstone animals in the 1890s and they proved popular with their elite clients. Queen Alexandra (wife of the British King Edward VIl) built a large collection, and production peaked in the years immediately before the outbreak of the First World War in 1914.

Objects such as this anteater were inspired by Japanese netsuke. Carl Fabergé owned over 500 of these. He married this admiration of Asian art with the rich Russian tradition of hardstone carving. The anteater is unusual among Fabergé's menagerie, although examples in bloodstone and quartz are also known.”

[life-imitates-art-far-more]

Thomas Couture (1815-1879) "Daydreams" (1859) Oil on canvas Located in the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, Maryland, United States

[7pleiades7]

Pandora (1873), (detail), by Alexandre Cabanel (French, 1823-1889), oil on canvas, 70.2 × 49.2 cm, The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore

[empirearchives]

Napoleon’s mother had a watch made for her as she lost her eyesight that was designed for her to tell the time by touch instead of reading numbers.

According to the Walters Art Museum:

This unusual watch has no numbers, it belongs to a type called "montres à tact" or discrete watches. The clever design allows the time to be told by touch alone, feeling the four diamonds on the hour and the quarters, and the pearls that mark the remaining divisions of the twelve hours. The raised arrow, also in diamonds, contrasts with the smooth surrounding enamel, taking the place of watch hands. It was made for Maria Letizia Bonaparte, Napoleon’s mother, who lost her sight as she aged.

The case employs a process called guilloché, where subtle but kaleidoscopic effects are created through mechanical means. Geometric shapes are carved into metal by engine turning. The resulting patterns of fine lines are covered with transparent enamel, when light hits them it creates oscillating optic effects.

Pierre Benjamin Tavernier (Jeweler), Basile Charles Le Roy (Clockmaker), Early 1800s

[yama-bato]

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 Jeffrey Totaro 

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[s4shiii]

[escapismsworld]

Walters Art Museum

[dwellerinthelibrary]

A panel from a 21st Dynasty “yellow coffin” at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore. Love the twin crocodile goddesses at lower left. I guess the twin bearded, snake-headed gods are both Osiris?

[A yellow coffin with various underworld figures painted in green and red, including the deceased flanked by a human goddess and a vulture-headed goddess, two enthroned, snake-headed gods, and two crocodile-headed goddesses standing back to back.]

[angelnumber27]

Chinese snuff bottle

[lionofchaeronea]

Sardonyx cameo by an unknown Byzantine artist of the 14th century, depicting St. Theodore Stratelates ("Army Commander"). Theodore (281-319) was a Roman soldier, said to have been martyred during the persecution of Christians by the emperor Licinius. Here, Theodore is shown in full military dress, a spear in his right hand and a round shield on his left shoulder. The accompanying inscription invokes him and his namesake, Theodore "the Recruit," as protectors; the cameo would likely have been suspended from a chain and wore around the neck as a protective amulet.

Now in the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. Photo credit: Walters Art Museum.

[pointandshooter]

Hackerman House, Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, Maryland

photo: David Castenson

[arthistoryanimalia]

Happy #InternationalDayOfTheSeal ! 🦭

Sea Lion Effigy Stirrup Vessel

Moche, Peru, 50-800 CE (Early Intermediate-Middle Horizon)

Earthenware (Blackware), H: 6 1/4 x W: 9 1/2 x D: 6 1/4 in. (15.9 x 24.1 x 15.9 cm)

The Walters Art Museum 48.2842 https://art.thewalters.org/detail/79387/seal-effigy-stirrup-vessel/

“This vessel shows a swimming sea lion, an animal commonly found on islands in the Pacific Ocean close to Peru. Apart from being an important source of food for Andean people, sea lions commonly swallow beach pebbles, which they later vomit up. These stones were considered to have powerful medicinal qualities, and could be ground to make herbal remedies in ancient Peru.”

🆔 South American Sea Lion (Otaria byronia)

[life-imitates-art-far-more]

Domenico Corvi (1721-1803) "Allegory of Painting" (1764) Oil on canvas Neoclassical Located in the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, Maryland, United States

[local-boob]

de Flers, Robert. Ilsée, Princesse de Tripoli. Illus. Alphonse Mucha, limited ed. Paris: Léon Gruel, 1897. source: Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, MD, USA (not on view)