Treasures From the Archives

"Van der Meulen was born in Brussels and entered the service of French king Louis XIV in 1664. Under the direction of painter Charles Le Brun, who managed teams of artists and craftsmen on projects for the crown, he supplied designs glorifying French military battles to be woven into tapestries at the Gobelins manufactory. This quick study shows the French camp southeast of Douai, in the north of France. The major landmarks of the city can be identified in the background; the grouping of figures on horseback, however, appears to have been adapted for use in the foreground of a painting depicting the arrival of the king at the siege of Lille."

"An accomplished painter of history and drama, Maclise came close to the Pre-Raphaelites late in his career, when he painted Madeline after Prayer (1868; Guildhall Art Gallery, London), inspired by John Keats’s The Eve of St. Agnes. Madeline is preparing for bed, hoping to dream of a future husband. Blanchard’s etching contrasts the maiden’s moonlit beauty with the deeply shadowed room. The poem tells us that she is watched by a hidden suitor: Porphyro grew faint: She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from mortal taint. Anon, his heart revives: her vespers done, Of all its wreathed pearls her hair she frees; Unclasps her warmed jewels one by one; Loosens her fragrant bodice; by degrees Her rich attire creeps rustling to her knees. . . . The detailed setting and our proximity to the main figure distinguish the conception from John Everett Millais’s 1863 version of the subject."

"This image of a Parisian worker comes from a set of twenty-four caricatures that Matthew and Mary Darly published in 1771. A husband-and-wife team, the Darlys developed a new British print genre--small etched caricatures of single figures against plain backgrounds, their identities indicated through dress, pose and a few props. Many of these works mocked the fashionable manners of contemporary London dandies called "macaronis," and the Darly's wares soon became known as macaroni prints no matter what their subjects. The implied Italian connection was in fact appropriate, since the basic form was inspired by Ghezzi's caricature drawings brought back from Rome by Grand Tourists. The form and subjects adapted by the Darlys tickled British tastes and broadened the scope of Ghezzi's works to include a range of social classes, known figures, and types. Bunbury was a skilled amateur artist who toured Europe in 1769."

"These designs for panels of ornament, numbered CLVI to CLXXV, incorporate foliage and geometrical forms. The print comes from a group that Pergolesi made and published serially in London between 1777 and 1792. There is no title page, but a prospectus of ca. 1786 described the group as: "A great variety of original designs of vases, figures, medallions, friezes, pilasters, panels and other ornaments, in the Etruscan and grotesque style." The complete set contains 67 plates numbered 1-66 (two are numbered 56), with designs within the plates irregularly numbered 1-435 (in Roman numerals at first, then with Arabic numbers). In 1801, after Pergolesi's death, four additional plates of designs were published by a bookseller Dulouchamp (or Dulonchamp)."