#walters art museum

[thatshowthingstarted]

The "Rubens Vase," an Agate Hardstone Carving of c. A.D. 400,

Carved in high relief from a single piece of agate, this extraordinary vase was most likely created in an imperial workshop for a Byzantine emperor.

It made its way to France, probably carried off as treasure after the sack of Constantinople in 1204 during the Fourth Crusade, where it passed through the hands of some of the most renowned collectors of western Europe, including the Dukes of Anjou and King Charles V of France.

In 1619, the vase was purchased by the great Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640). A drawing that he made of it is now in Saint Petersburg, State Hermitage Museum, inv. 5430.

The subsequent fate of the vase before the 19th century is obscure. The gold mount around its rim is struck with a French gold-standard mark used in 1809-1819 and with the guarantee stamp of the French departement of Ain.

A similar late Roman agate vessel, the "Waddesdon Vase" or "Cellini Vase," in now in the British Museum, London.

The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, Maryland.

[lionofchaeronea]

Moonlit Scene, Houses at Night, Léon Bonvin, 1864

[arthistoryanimalia]

#RattlesnakeAppreciationDay :

Knotted Rattlesnake

Aztec, Postclassic 1100-1520 CE

Basalt, H 11 1/4 x W 16 in. (28.5 x 40.64 cm)

The Walters Art Museum 29.2

“Compact and smoothly polished, this rattlesnake displays typical Aztec sculptural techniques. Both the musculature of this snake's body and its head have been sculpted in great detail. The eyes were probably once inlaid, and ferocious fangs descend from the snake's upper jaw. Snakes were powerful symbols throughout Mesoamerican history, linked with the sky, rain, and agriculture. Aztecs may have seen the snake's shedding of its skin as a metaphor for the cyclical nature of life, death, and rebirth.”

[pointandshooter]

Hackerman House, Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, Maryland

photo: David Castenson

[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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[baebeylik]

Body Armor. Türkiye, Ottoman Empire. 16th Century CE.

The Walters Art Museum.

[angelnumber27]

Chinese snuff bottle

[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.]

[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.

[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.”

[pointandshooter]

Hackerman House, Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, Maryland

photo: David Castenson

[life-imitates-art-far-more]

Thomas Couture (1815-1879) "Daydreams" (1859) Oil on canvas 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)

[internationalpictures]

Antonio Gai, Urania, Muse of Astronomy, 1725-69

Walters Art Museum, Baltimore

[baebeylik]

Single leaf with Saint Luke. Ethiopian, Solomonic dynasty. Late 14th Century CE.

The Walters Art Museum.