Stories about Famous Paintings II

Frescoes, Villa of the Mysteries

- Artist: Unknown- Year: c. first century B.C.

In 1909, archeologists working in the ancient Roman city of Pompeii unearthed a villa buried under 30 feet of volcanic ash. Preserved inside was a room, measuring approximately 225 square feet, containing a series of beautiful—yet baffling—frescoes. The images depict more than two dozen, life-size figures. At the center of the activity is a nude woman, shown flogged in one scene while dancing and playing the cymbals in another. Most scholars concur that the cycle represents a Dionysian initiation cult.

Girl With A Pearl Earring

- Artist: Johannes Vermeer- Year: 1665

A masterpiece of the Dutch Golden Age, Vermeer’s “Girl with a Pearl Earring” has transfixed viewers with her wistful gaze ever since the painting resurfaced in the late 19th century. Little, however, is known about the young woman who modeled for the portrait. It has been suggested that the girl was Vermeer’s daughter or mistress. While this may be the case, the image wasn’t intended to represent an actual person. The turban worn by the sitter indicates that the piece was intended as a “tronie”—an idealized image cloaked in exotic clothing.

Déjeuner sur L’herbe

- Artist: Edouard Manet- Year: 1863

Edouard Manet’s sensational “Déjeuner sur L’herbe” ("Luncheon on the Grass") scandalized 19th-century Paris, not for its stark nudity, but because it broke with a long-standing tradition of depicting nudes in classical settings. The Paris Salon rejected the painting, declaring it obscene. Victorine-Louise Meurent, the naked woman staring unapologetically at the viewer, was assumed by many to be a local prostitute; she was actually a sought-after Parisian artist’s model and an accomplished painter in her own right.

Ophelia

- Artist: Sir John Everett Millais- Year: 1851-52

Pre-Raphaelite John Everett Millais, in true Pre-Raphaelite fashion, painted directly from life whenever possible. Much of the exuberant foliage found in “Ophelia” can be found in Shakespeare's "Hamlet" and was painted en plein air. Millais, however, didn’t subject his 19-year-old model, Elizabeth Siddall, to the elements; she reportedly posed for the artist in a bathtub full of water in his London studio.

The Gross Clinic

- Artist: Thomas Eakins- Year: 1875

Philadelphia artist Thomas Eakins spent a year working on “The Gross Clinic,” which he painted specifically for his hometown’s 1876 Centennial Exhibition. The closely observed work depicts Dr. Samuel Gross and associates operating on a patient’s leg. A stricken woman hiding her face from the open gash has been traditionally identified as the faceless patient’s mother. Sitting behind Gross, to the right of the painting is a self-portrait of the artist. Jurists, shocked by the gory realism, rejected the work, which was eventually housed in a reconstruction of a U.S. Army Post Hospital.11 / 50

Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee

- Artist: Rembrandt van Rijn- Year: 1633

Purchased by art enthusiast Isabella Stewart Gardner in 1898, Rembrandt’s only painted seascape occupied a place of prominence in the Boston museum Gardner erected in her name until March 18, 1990, when it was stolen, along with over a dozen important works valued at approximately half a billion dollars. Although the finger has frequently been pointed at now-deceased Boston career criminal Whitey Bulger, the thieves have never been caught, and the whereabouts of the missing artwork remains unknown.