Browse Items (177 total)

Created by Michelangelo Caravaggio c. 1606-1610, David with the Head of Goliath was created as a gift for the papal court of Rome, specifically for Scipione Borgehese. Caravaggio was accused of murdering Tomassoni in May 1606, and fled from Rome, but…

Michelangelo Caravaggio, born in Milan, mastered painting biblical stories in a dark and violent light [1]. Caravaggio created David with the Head of Goliath for Scipione Borghese, an Italian cardinal, as a way of asking for forgiveness for murdering…

In this portrait – believed to be a self-portrait of Marietta Robusti – the sitter gazes outward at the audience with a slight smile. Turned in a three-quarter pose toward the spinet, her left hand floats above the keys as if surprised by the viewer…

Lorenzo Lotto was commissioned to create a portrait for the Bishop Bernardo de’ Rossi that showed his elegance and status. Lorenzo Lotto, born in Venice in 1480, learned how to paint with the Murano school, as Henry S. Francis points out, working on…

The painting of the Allegory of Chastity was originally created as a portrait cover for the bishop of Treviso, Bernardo de' Rossi. At the time, the bishop created a close-knit group of artists that he utilized to create works of art, which included…

The Golden age is part of a cycle of three paintings in the Uffizi, including the other two representations of the Ages of Silver, and Iron. The cause or context the cycle of Zucchi was commissioned is not known based on the limited historic…

Jacopo Tintoretto was commissioned by the Scuola Grande di San Marco in 1547 to create a painting for the Sala Capitolare [1]. The artist came from a family of cloth dyers in Venice. He practiced drawing and painting from a young age, landing a spot…

Minerva Sending Away Mars from Peace and Prosperity is a single painting in a cycle of four paintings that include, Three Graces and Mercury, Bacchus, Ariadne and Venus, Minerva Rejecting Mars and the Forge of Vulcan. [1] These pieces were created…

The Venetian government, the Signoria, created a contest to see who would create a painting modeled after Dante’s Paradise on the wall of the Great Council Hall after the destruction of the fire of 1577. At first, Veronese was chosen to create the…

The first thing that viewer's eyes are drawn to is the larger than life man on the left hand side of the painting.  He is clothed in blue and light red cloth, with one arm on his hip and one outstretched towards the center of the painting.  The cloth…