.: National Gallery of Victoria

Today is a visit to the National Gallery of Victoria, I simply love museums!

The world's largest stained-glass ceiling in the NGV's Great Hall, designed by Australian artist Leonard French

Leonard French was born in Brunswick, Victoria to a family of Cornish origin. His stained glass creations include a series of panels in the cafe and foyer of the National Library of Australia in Canberra, and a stained glass ceiling for the great hall at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, which is one of the largest in the world.

Leonard William French (8 October 1928 – 10 January 2017) was an Australian artist, known principally for major stained glass works.

"Mary, Lady Vere" (c. 1612-1615) by William LARKIN

how many hundreds or even thousands of the painting of Mary nursing baby, you think exist?

"The Man of Sorrows in the arms of the Virgin" (1475) {or (1479)} by Hans MEMLING

Originally from a small town near Frankfurt-am-Main, Hans Memling became a citizen of Bruges in the Burgundian Netherlands in 1465 and remained there until his death. This panel represents Christ as an image of pity. Displaying the wounds of his Passion, yet open-eyed and thus ‘alive’, Jesus is shown cradled in the arms of his grieving mother. Fervent prayer in front of harrowing images of this type was considered to have the power to hasten the soul’s passage through the pains of Purgatory.

Piétà (early 16th century) GERMANY

Carved in wood with polychrome surfaces and some gilding. The Pietà (Italian for pity) is a type of devotional image which developed in Germany at the beginning of the fourteenth century. In its most common form it depicts, as in this early sixteenth-century example, the Virgin Mary sorrowfully cradling the dead body of her son Christ.

"Saints Basil, Chrysostom and Gregory with a kneeling donor" (early 18th century GREECE)

"The Virgin and Child" (mid 15th century-late 15th century) FLANDERS

"Sophonisba receiving the poison" (c. 1675) by Mattia PRETI

"The Town Hall, Amsterdam" (1690) by Gerritt BERCKHEYDE

"Landscape with cattle" (c. 1639-1649) by Aelbert CUYP

Aelbert Cuyp is now considered one of the leading landscape artists of the Golden Age of Dutch painting. The animals in his landscapes always appear healthy and robust. In their idyllic settings, they attest to a buoyant Dutch economy and to the sense of prosperity prevalent in the Netherlands in the early seventeenth century. In particular, the dairy industry was a subject of great pride, and the depiction of cattle was a special genre in Dutch painting.

"The Banquet of Cleopatra" (1743-1744) by Giambattista TIEPOLO

The love affair between the Roman consul Mark Antony (83–30 BC) and the Egyptian queen, Cleopatra (69–30 BC) was a popular subject for artists in the eighteenth century. The episode represented in Tiepolo’s painting is drawn from Pliny’s Natural History (written in AD 77). Here Pliny recounted the tale of a famous contest between the Egyptian and Roman rulers whereby Cleopatra wagered that she could stage a feast more lavish than the legendary excesses of Mark Antony.

Tiepolo shows the dramatic moment at the end of Cleopatra’s repast when, faced with a still scornful Mark Antony, she wins the wager with her trump card. Removing one of a pair of priceless pearl earrings, Cleopatra dissolves it in a glass of vinegar and drinks it, thereby causing Mark Antony to lose his bet. The Banquet of Cleopatra was purchased directly from Tiepolo’s Venice studio in early 1744, by Count Francesco Algarotti, for Augustus III, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland. The artist was paid three hundred zecchini for the painting, which was then dispatched to Dresden (and, subsequently, to the elector’s hunting lodge at Hubertusburg), remaining in the royal collections of Saxony until 1765. However, by the turn of the nineteenth century, The Banquet of Cleopatra had entered the Russian imperial collections, and was for a time placed on a ceiling within the Mikhailovsky Palace in St Petersburg. Later it was transferred to the Hermitage Palace, where it remained until sold to the National Gallery of Victoria by the Soviet authorities in 1932.

on the left: "Monsieur Le Bret and his son, Cardin Le Bret" (1697) by Hyacinthe RIGAUD

on the right: "Sir Sampson Gideon and an unidentified companion" (1767) by Pompeo BATONI

The Synnot children (1781) by Joseph WRIGHT of Derby

on the right: "Richard Grenville, 2nd Earl Temple" (1762) by Allan RAMSAY

I am sitting and enjoying "Moses bringing down the Tables of the Law" painting

(1872)-1877 by John Rogers HERBERT

"Dorothea" (1840s) by William ETTY

This painting shows the scene from Cervantes’s tale Don Quixote in which Dorothea, a fugitive in the mountains, is watched by two of the Don’s companions as she cools her feet in a brook. She wears a peasant costume as a disguise and is shown lifting her head at the noise by which the watchers betray their presence.