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Workshop of Bernardino Luini: Madonna and Child Enthroned with Angels

Workshop of Bernardino Luini (Italian, Milanese School, circa 1480–1532). Madonna and Child Enthroned with Angels, mid-16th century. Oil on poplar panel, 963/4 x 541/16 in. (245.7 x 137.3 cm). Brooklyn Museum; Purchased with funds given by Martin Joost, Frank S. Jones, L. W. Lawrence, Dick S. Ramsay, John T. Underwood, Henry H. Benedict, Herman Stutzer, F. Healy, Horace J. Morse, Luke V. Lockwood, Henry L. Batterman, Edward C. Blum, Frank L. Babbott, William H. Crittenden, W.C. Courtney, Frederic B. Pratt, H.I. Pratt, Alfred T. White, E. LeGrand Beers, C.D. Pratt, C.J. Peabody, Wallace A. Putnam, and A. Augustus Healy, 16.441. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)

Workshop of Bernardino Luini: Madonna and Child Enthroned with Angels

Workshop of Bernardino Luini (Italian, Milanese School, circa 1480–1532). Madonna and Child Enthroned with Angels, mid-16th century. Oil on poplar panel, 963/4 x 541/16 in. (245.7 x 137.3 cm). Brooklyn Museum; Purchased with funds given by Martin Joost, Frank S. Jones, L. W. Lawrence, Dick S. Ramsay, John T. Underwood, Henry H. Benedict, Herman Stutzer, F. Healy, Horace J. Morse, Luke V. Lockwood, Henry L. Batterman, Edward C. Blum, Frank L. Babbott, William H. Crittenden, W.C. Courtney, Frederic B. Pratt, H.I. Pratt, Alfred T. White, E. LeGrand Beers, C.D. Pratt, C.J. Peabody, Wallace A. Putnam, and A. Augustus Healy, 16.441. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)

Auguste Rodin (French, 1840–1917). Balzac, Nude Study C, Large Version (Balzac, étude de nu, grand modèle), 1892–1893; cast 1972. Bronze, 4978 x 1914 x 2612 in., 148 lb. (126.7 x 48.9 x 67.3 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Foundation, 85.198

Nardo di Cione: Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints Zenobius, John the Baptist, Reparata, and John the Evangelist

Nardo di Cione (Italian, Florentine, active 1343–1356/1366). Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints Zenobius, John the Baptist, Reparata, and John the Evangelist, mid-14th century. Tempera and tooled gold on panel, 7712 x 3912 in. (196.9 × 100.3 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Healy Purchase Fund B; Gift of Mrs. S. S. Auchincloss, James A. H. Bell, Mrs. Tunis G. Bergen, Mrs. Arthur Blake, Leonard Block, Mary A. Brackett, Mrs. Charles Bull in memory of Noel Joseph Becar, Sidney Curtis, Mrs. Watson B. Dickerman, Forrest Dryden, the estate of George M. Dunaif, Marion Gans, Francis Gottsberger in memory of his wife, Eliza, bequest of Anne Halstead, Mrs. William H. Haupt, A. Augustus Healy, William H. Herriman, Mrs. Alexander Howe, Julian Clarence Levi, the Martin estate, bequest of Emilie Henriette Mayr in memory of her brother and sister-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. George Mayr, Mrs. Richard Norsam Meade in memory of Margery Moyca Newell, Bernard Palitz, Richman Proskauer, Charles A Schieren, the estate of Isabel Shults, Mr. and Mrs. Daniel H. Silberberg, Austin Wolf, Mrs. Hamilton Wolf, and Mrs. Henry Wolf, by exchange, 1995.2

Nardo di Cione most likely painted this altarpiece for the most important church in Florence: the Duomo. The cathedral housed the relics of Saint Zenobius and the city’s original patron saint, Reparata—both depicted here. Nardo painted the altarpiece in the wake of the Black Death, or bubonic plague, which struck Florence in 1348 and took the lives of two-thirds of the population. For their post-plague compositions, he and his contemporaries returned to a Gothic tradition, evident here in the use of gold grounds, the traditional manner of representing the changeless luminosity of the eternal.

Frans Hals: Portrait of a Man

Frans Hals (Dutch, circa 1580–1666). Portrait of a Man, circa 1614–15. Oil on canvas, 29 × 2134 in. (73.7 × 55.2 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of the executors of the estate of Colonel Michael Friedsam, 32.821

The coat of arms in the upper left corner offers a clue to this sitter’s lineage, but his identity remains unknown. He extends his right hand through the simulated oval frame and into the viewer’s space, holding a painted miniature of a young woman, perhaps his betrothed or wife. Before the advent of photography in the nineteenth century, the well-to-do commissioned portrait miniatures as portable and intimate mementoes of loved ones.

Francisco de Goya y Lucientes: Don Tadeo Bravo de Rivero

Francisco de Goya y Lucientes (Spanish, 1746–1828). Don Tadeo Bravo de Rivero, 1806. Oil on canvas, 8112 x 451116 in. (207 × 116 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of the executors of the estate of Colonel Michael Friedsam, 34.490

In their formal full-length portraits, Old and New World elites proudly defined themselves through their things. The colonial Peruvian nobleman Tadeo Bravo de Rivero sat for Francisco de Goya y Lucientes wearing the brilliant scarlet uniform of a cavalry officer. The medal of the chivalric Order of Santiago displayed on his lapel points to one of the ways that Creoles (American-born Spaniards) elevated their rank within the empire’s social and racial hierarchy. At the officer’s feet is a dog, the traditional symbol of fidelity, suggesting the subject’s devotion to his king.

Claude Monet: Houses of Parliament, Sunlight Effect (Le Parlement, effet de soleil)

Claude Monet (French, 1840–1926). Houses of Parliament, Sunlight Effect (Le Parlement, effet de soleil), 1903. Oil on canvas, 32 × 3614 in. (81.3 × 92.1 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Bequest of Grace Underwood Barton, 68.48.1

Having already explored the play of water and light, Claude Monet took up the challenge of capturing the transformative beauty of London’s fog and smoke. During three winter painting trips from 1899 to 1901, he executed a number of works along the banks of the Thames. Stationing himself on the balcony of Saint Thomas’ Hospital, across the river from his subject, he substituted one canvas for another—nineteen in all—as changing weather and light conditions dictated. The Houses of Parliament emerge as a massive silhouette amid the late-afternoon gloom. Rays of pale sunshine break through at the upper right and shimmer on the water below in overlapping strokes of color.

Vasili Vereshchagin: The Road of the War Prisoners

Vasili Vereshchagin (Russian, 1842–1904). The Road of the War Prisoners, 1878–79. Oil on canvas, 7112 x 11012 in. (181.6 × 280.7 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Mrs. Lilla Brown in memory of her husband John W. Brown, 06.46

With loose, expressive brushstrokes and raw, emotional detail, Vasily Vereshchagin conveys on a massive scale the horrors of the Russo-Turkish War. In the winter of 1877, while working as a war correspondent, he witnessed thousands of Turkish prisoners freezing to death as they were marched to Russian war camps.

Vereshchagin’s war canvases exemplify the avant-garde Russian interpretation of French Realism, a movement that embraced truthful portrayals of contemporary themes to bring about social reform. The openly antiwar The Road of the War Prisoners was rejected for the czar’s collection. In 1891 Vereshchagin finally sold both canvases displayed here to collectors in New York still haunted by the horrors of the American Civil War.

European Art

April 8, 2016–July 18, 2021

This installation of our European Art collection spans the Early Renaissance through World War II, showcasing the breadth of works within the collection.

The selection of paintings and sculptures addresses identity-making in Europe through themes of faith (The Sacred: Religious Art), status (The Secular: Portraiture), and a sense of place (The Menacing Landscape and The Tranquil Landscape).

The installation includes paintings by American artists working in Europe or responding to European traditions at home, broadening the traditional borders of the collection and reflecting our expansive, transatlantic approach and our commitment to rethinking the global context in which these works are presented.

Also on view are four bronze sculptures by Auguste Rodin, including one preparatory nude and three figures cast from Rodin’s The Burghers of Calais. This grouping invites consideration of the role of historical monuments and their ability to reexamine past narratives. Our Rodin collection, composed of more than sixty sculptures, came to us through the generosity of Iris and B. Gerald Cantor.

Generous support for the installation of the European galleries as a part of the Brooklyn Museum’s Countdown to Launch initiatives is provided by Leslie and Alan Beller.