Tag Archives: still life

Museum Muses – Muses du musée

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Street art of a slightly different kind….  Seen pasted on a wall on a street in Paris – a display of black and white prints of famous paintings by women artists from over the centuries.

below: ‘Game of Chess’ by Sofonisba Anguissola (c1532-1625, Italian)

painting of three women, two are playing chess and the third is watching, painted by Sofonisba Anguissola in the 16th century. A black and white print pasted on a wall

below:Self Portrait by Judith Leyster (1609-1660, Dutch)

black and white print of Judith Leyster's self portrait

below: Portrait of Antonietta Gonzales painted by Lavinia Fontana. (1552-1614). She was possibly Italy’s first professional painter. The subject of the painting, Antonietta, suffered from a condition known as hypertrichosis (aka werewolf syndrome), a rare genetic disorder that results in excess body hair. Antonietta’s father also had the disorder as did two of her sisters.

black and white print of Lavinia Fontan's portrait of a young girl with werewolf syndrome, painted in the 1500s

below: A man’s portrait by Rosalba Carriera (1673-1757, Venetian)

black and white print of a man's portrait painted by Rosalba Carriera, a Venetian painter

below: ‘Portrait of a Lady as a Vestal Virgin’ by Angelica Kauffman (1741-1807), a Swiss Neoclassical painter. Her father was also a painter. He started teaching her at an early age and by 12 she was already known as a painter in her own right. Kauffman was one of only two women founders of the Royal Academy in London.

black and white print of a still life with flowers in a vase and two trophies on a table

below: “Still Life with Flowers and Gold Trophies” by Clara Peeters (1589-1657, Flemish)

black and white print of a painting of a woman as vestal virgin posing, pasted on a wall outside

below: Another still life with flowers, this one by Rachel Ruysch (1664-1750). She was a Dutch artist whose painting career lasted more than 60 years; she was a master at painting still lifes with flowers.

painting of still life flower arrangement, black and white copy pasted onto a wall outdoors

below: ‘The Redeemer’ by St. Hildegard von Bingen (c1098-1179), with a copy of the original (in colour and unfaded) underneath. St. Hildegard, or Sybil of the Rhine, was a German Benedictine abbess with many accomplishments to her name.

a faded to sepia from black and white print of a painting of the redeemer, full of Christian symbolism, by St. Hildegard many centuries ago, copy is pasted onto a concrete wall with peeling paint in Paris

print of a painting of the redeemer, full of Christian symbolism, by St. Hildegard many centuries ago, original colours

below: ‘The Penis Tree’. Between about 1325 and 1353, Jeanne and Richard de Montbaston printed books and manuscripts including the “scandalous, rude and misogynistic” poem, the ‘Roman de la Rose’. The first 4,058 verses were written by Guillaume de Lorris in the early 1200s and they describe a courtier’s attempt to win over a woman. About 40 years later, Jean de Meun (aka Jean Chopinel) wrote another 19000 lines. This was before the invention of the printing press so each manuscript was hand drawn. The picture shown here of a nun picking penises from a tree is attributed to Jeanne de Montbaston.

very small print of a medieval drawing of a person picking penises off a small tree and putting them in a basket, displayed with other images on an exterior wall with peeling paint.