Small Cowper Madonna
Painting by Raphael
The Small Cowper Madonna is a painting by the Italian High Renaissance artist Raphael, depicting Mary and Child, in a typical Italian countryside. It has been dated to around 1504–1505, the middle of the High Renaissance.
History.
It is not known exactly why the "Small Cowper Madonna" was painted. It was probably either a private commission or for the general art market; images of the Madonna and Child were often given as wedding presents. It is widely thought that the church on the right hand side of the painting is the church of San Bernardino, where the Dukes of Urbino (where Raphael was born) were buried, and it has been suggested that the presence of the church means the painting may have been "commissioned by the family for devotional purposes."
Around 1780, the painting was sold to the prominent art collector George Clavering-Cowper, 3rd Earl Cowper, whose surname would lend the painting its name. The painting was passed down through six generations of Cowpers before it was sold to Duveen Brothers, Inc. in 1913. In 1914, it was sold to American magnate Peter A.B. Widener, who displayed the painting at Lynnewood Hall. Peter A.B. Widener's son, Joseph E. Widener, donated the "Small Cowper Madonna" to the National Gallery of Art in 1942, along with the rest of Lynnewood Hall's extensive art collection.
In 2015 the National Gallery of Art loaned the "Small Cowper Madonna" to the Worcester Art Museum in Massachusetts (U.S.) to be exhibited alongside "The Virgin and Child (The Northbrook Madonna)". The Northbrook Madonna is in the Worcester Art Museum's permanent collection and was once attributed to Raphael. One hope of the exhibition was to identify the artist who painted the Northbrook Madonna. The painter of the Northbrook Madonna was later identified by the museum as perhaps being Domenico Alfani, a close friend of Raphael's whose works have often been misattributed to the better-known artist.
Description.
Sitting in the center of the work in a bright red dress is the Madonna. She is fair skinned with blonde hair. She sits comfortably on a wooden bench. Across her lap is a dark drapery upon which her right hand delicately sits. There appears to be a sheer translucent ribbon elegantly flowing across the top of her dress and behind her head. The faintest golden halo miraculously surrounds her head. In her left hand she holds the baby Christ, who embraces her with one arm around her back, the other around her neck. He looks back over his shoulder with a coy smile. Behind them, a beautifully clear and bright day unfolds. Off in the distance two figures appear to be ambling toward a reflective pond, enjoying the green scenery around them. A large structure stands at the end of a long path, thought to be the Church of San Bernardino in Urbino.
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National Gallery of Art
Art museum in Washington, D.C.
The National Gallery of Art is an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of charge, the museum was privately established in 1937 for the American people by a joint resolution of the United States Congress. Andrew W. Mellon donated a substantial art collection and funds for construction. The core collection includes major works of art donated by Paul Mellon, Ailsa Mellon Bruce, Lessing J. Rosenwald, Samuel Henry Kress, Rush Harrison Kress, Peter Arrell Browne Widener, Joseph E. Widener, and Chester Dale. The Gallery's collection of paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, sculpture, medals, and decorative arts traces the development of Western art from the Middle Ages to the present, including the only painting by Leonardo da Vinci in the Americas and the largest mobile created by Alexander Calder.
The Gallery's campus includes the original neoclassical West Building designed by John Russell Pope, which is linked underground to the modernist East Building, designed by I. M. Pei, and is next to the Sculpture Garden. The Gallery often presents temporary special exhibitions spanning the world and the history of art. It is one of the largest museums in North America.
Attendance rose to nearly 3.3 million visitors in 2022, making it third on the list of most-visited museums in the United States. Of the top three art museums in the United States by annual visitors, it is the only one that has no admission fee.
History.
Origins.
Andrew W. Mellon, Pittsburgh banker and Treasury Secretary from 1921 until 1932, began gathering a private collection of old master paintings and sculptures during World War I. During the late 1920s, Mellon decided to direct his collecting efforts towards the establishment of a new national gallery for the United States.
In 1930, partly for tax reasons, Mellon formed the A. W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, which was to be the legal owner of works intended for the gallery. In 1930–1931, the Trust made its first major acquisition, 21 paintings from the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg as part of the Soviet sale of Hermitage paintings, including such masterpieces as Raphael's "Alba Madonna," Titian's "Venus with a Mirror", and Jan van Eyck's "Annunciation".
In 1929 Mellon had initiated contact with the recently appointed Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, Charles Greeley Abbot. Mellon was appointed in 1931 as a Commissioner of the Institution's National Gallery of Art. When the director of the Gallery retired, Mellon asked Abbot not to appoint a successor, as he proposed to endow a new building with funds for expansion of the collections.
However, Mellon's trial for tax evasion, centering on the Trust and the Hermitage paintings, caused the plan to be modified. In 1935, Mellon announced in "The Washington Star" his intention to establish a new gallery for old masters, separate from the Smithsonian. When asked by Abbot, he explained that the project was in the hands of the Trust and that its decisions were partly dependent on "the attitude of the Government towards the gift".
In January 1937, Mellon formally offered to create the new Gallery. On his birthday, 24 March 1937, an Act of Congress accepted the collection and building funds (provided through the Trust), and approved the construction of a museum on the National Mall.
The new gallery was to be effectively self-governing, not controlled by the Smithsonian, but took the old name "National Gallery of Art" while the Smithsonian's gallery would be renamed the "National Collection of Fine Arts" (now the Smithsonian American Art Museum).
Construction and later history.
The museum stands on the former site of the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station, where in 1881 a disgruntled office seeker, Charles Guiteau, shot President James Garfield (see James A. Garfield assassination). The station was demolished in 1908 because it did not conform to the McMillan Plan for the Mall. In 1918, temporary war buildings were constructed on the site; these were demolished by 1921 to construct the foundation of the George Washington Memorial Building, which was never completed. The site was then reassigned to the new National Gallery of Art.
Designed by architect John Russell Pope, the new structure was completed and accepted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on behalf of the American people on March 17, 1941. At the time of its inception it was the largest marble structure in the world. Neither Mellon nor Pope lived to see the museum completed; both died in late August 1937, only two months after excavation had begun.
As anticipated by Mellon, the creation of the National Gallery encouraged the donation of other substantial art collections by a number of private donors. Founding benefactors included such individuals as Paul Mellon, Samuel H. Kress, Rush H. Kress, Ailsa Mellon Bruce, Chester Dale, Joseph Widener, Lessing J. Rosenwald and Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch.
The Gallery's East Building was constructed in the 1970s on much of the remaining land left over from the original congressional action. Andrew Mellon's children, Paul Mellon and Ailsa Mellon Bruce, funded the building. Designed by architect I. M. Pei, the contemporary structure was completed in 1978 and was opened on June 1 of that year by President Jimmy Carter. The new building was built to house the Museum's collection of modern paintings, drawings, sculptures, and prints, as well as study and research centers and offices. The design received a National Honor Award from the American Institute of Architects in 1981.
The final addition to the complex is the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden. Completed and opened to the public on May 23, 1999, the location provides an outdoor setting for exhibiting a number of large pieces from the Museum's contemporary sculpture collection.
In 2011, an extensive refurbishment and renovation of the French galleries were undertaken. As part of the celebration of the reopening of this wing, organist Alexander Frey performed 4 sold-out recitals of music of France in one weekend in the French Gallery.
Operations.
The National Gallery of Art is supported through a private-public partnership. The United States federal government provides funds, through annual appropriations, to support the museum's operations and maintenance. All artwork, as well as special programs, are provided through private donations and funds. The museum is not part of the Smithsonian Institution.
Noted directors of the National Gallery have included David E. Finley, Jr. (1938–1956), John Walker (1956–1968), and J. Carter Brown (1968–1993). Earl A. "Rusty" Powell III was named director in 1993. In March 2019 he was succeeded by Kaywin Feldman, past director and president of the Minneapolis Institute of Art. The museum hired Evelyn Carmen Ramos, the first woman and the first person of color to be the chief curatorial and conservation officer, in 2021.
The president of the museum is billionaire businessman Mitchell Rales and its chairperson is Sharon Rockefeller.
Entry to both buildings of the National Gallery of Art is free of charge. The museum is open daily from 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. It is closed on December 25 and January 1.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the National Gallery was largely closed to the public. However, visitors were able to schedule appointments to access the west building in small numbers.
Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts.
The Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA), the National Gallery of Art's research institute, was founded in 1979. The Center offers visiting professorships, a fellowship program, and undergraduate internship opportunities, as well as a publication program.
The first dean of CASVA, architectural historian Henry A. Millon, was appointed in 1980 . He was succeeded by Elizabeth Cropper in 2000. Steven Nelson became the third dean of CASVA in 2020.
Architecture.
The museum comprises two buildings: the West Building (1941) and the East Building (1978), linked by an underground passage. The West Building, composed of pink Tennessee marble, was designed in 1937 by architect John Russell Pope in a neoclassical style (as is Pope's other notable building in Washington, D.C., the Jefferson Memorial). Designed in the form of an elongated H, the building is centered on a domed rotunda modeled on the interior of the Pantheon in Rome. Extending east and west from the rotunda, a pair of skylit sculpture halls provide its main circulation spine. Bright garden courts provide a counterpoint to the long main axis of the building.
The West Building has an extensive collection of paintings and sculptures by European masters from the medieval period through the late 19th century, as well as pre-20th century works by American artists. Highlights of the collection include paintings by Jan Vermeer, Rembrandt van Rijn, Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh, and Leonardo da Vinci.
In contrast, the design of the East Building, by architect I. M. Pei, is geometrical, dividing the trapezoidal shape of the site into two triangles: one contains public galleries, and the other houses a library, offices, and a study center. The triangles establish a motif that is echoed throughout the building, realized in every dimension.
The East Building's central feature is a high atrium designed as an open interior court that is enclosed by a sculptural space spanning . The atrium is centered on the same axis that forms the circulation spine for the West Building and is constructed in the same Tennessee marble.
However, in 2005 the joints attaching the marble panels to the walls began to show signs of strain, creating a risk that panels might fall onto visitors below. In 2008, NGA officials decided that it had become necessary to remove and reinstall all of the panels. The renovation was completed in 2016.
The East Building focuses on modern and contemporary art, with a collection including works by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Alexander Calder, a 1977 mural by Robert Motherwell and works by many other artists. The East Building also contains the main offices of the NGA and a large research facility, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA). Among the highlights of the East Building in 2012 was an exhibition of Barnett Newman's "The Stations of the Cross" series of 14 black and white paintings (1958–66). Newman painted them after he had recovered from a heart attack; they are usually regarded as the peak of his achievement. The series has also been seen as a memorial to the victims of the Holocaust.
The two buildings are connected by a walkway beneath 4th street, called "the Concourse" on the museum's map. In 2008, the National Gallery of Art commissioned American artist Leo Villareal to transform the Concourse into an artistic installation. "Multiverse" is one of Villareal's largest and most complex light sculpture by light count, featuring approximately 41,000 computer-programmed LED nodes that run through channels along the entire -long space. The concourse also includes the food court and a gift shop.
The final element of the National Gallery of Art complex, the Sculpture Garden was completed in 1999 after more than 30 years of planning. To the west of the West Building, on the opposite side of Seventh Street, the Sculpture Garden was designed by landscape architect Laurie Olin as an outdoor gallery for monumental modern sculpture.
The Sculpture Garden contains plantings of Native American species of canopy and flowering trees, shrubs, ground covers, and perennials. A circular reflecting pool and fountain form the center of its design, which arching pathways of granite and crushed stone complement. (The pool becomes an ice-skating rink during the winter.) The sculptures exhibited in the surrounding landscaped area include pieces by Marc Chagall, David Smith, Mark Di Suvero, Roy Lichtenstein, Sol LeWitt, Tony Smith, Roxy Paine, Joan Miró, Louise Bourgeois, and Hector Guimard.
Renovations.
The NGA's West Building was renovated from 2007 to 2009. Although some galleries closed for periods of time, others remained open.
After congressional testimony that the East Building suffered from "systematic structural failures", NGA adopted a Master Renovations Plan in 1999. This plan established the timeline for closing the building, and planned for the renovation of the electronic security systems, elevators, and HVAC. Space between the ceilings of existing galleries and the building's skylights (which was never completed when the building was constructed in 1978) would be renovated into two, high, hexagonal Tower Galleries. The galleries would have a combined of space and will be lit by skylights. A rooftop sculpture garden would also be added. NGA officials said that the Tower Galleries would probably house modern art, and the creation of a distinct "Rothko Room" was possible.
Beginning in 2011, NGA undertook an $85 million restoration of the East Building's façade. The East Building is clad in thick pink marble panels. The panels are held about away from the wall by stainless steel anchors. Gravity holds the panel in the bottom anchors (which are placed at each corner), while "button head" anchors (stainless steel posts with large, flat heads) at the top corners keep the panel upright. Mortar was used on the gravity anchors to level the stones. Joints of flexible colored neoprene were placed between the panels. This system was designed to allow each panel to hang independent of its neighbors, and NGA officials say they are not aware of any other panel system like it.
However, many panels were accidentally mortared together. Seasonal heating and cooling of the façade, infiltration of moisture, and shrinkage of the building's structural concrete by over time caused extensive damage to the façade. In 2005, regular maintenance showed that some panels were cracked or significantly damaged, while others leaned by more than out from the building (threatening to fall).
The NGA hired the structural engineering firm Robert Silman Associates to determine the cause of the problem. Although the Gallery began raising private funds to fix the issue, eventually federal funding was used to repair the building. In 2012, the NGA chose a joint venture, Balfour Beatty/Smoot, to complete the repairs. Anodized aluminum anchors replaced the stainless steel ones, and the top corner anchors were moved to the center of the top edge of each stone. The neoprene joints were removed and new colored silicone gaskets installed, and leveling screws rather than mortar used to keep the panels square. Work began in November 2011, and originally was scheduled to end in 2014. By February 2012, however, the contractor said work on the façade would end in late 2013, and site restoration would take place in 2014. The East Building remained open throughout the project.
In March 2013, the National Gallery of Art announced a $68.4 million renovation to the East Building. This included $38.4 million to refurbish the interior mechanical plant of the structure, and $30 million to create new exhibition space. Because the angular interior space of the East Building made it impossible to close off galleries, the renovation required all but the atrium and offices to close by December 2013. The structure remained closed for three years. The architectural firm of Hartman-Cox oversaw both aspects of the renovation.
A group of benefactors — which included Victoria and Roger Sant, Mitchell and Emily Rales, and David Rubenstein — privately financed the renovation. The "Washington Post" reported that the donation was one of the largest the NGA had received in a decade. NGA staff said that they would use the closure to conserve artwork, plan purchases, and develop exhibitions. Plans for renovating conservation, construction, exhibition prep, groundskeeping, office, storage, and other internal facilities were also ready, but would not be implemented for many years.
Collection.
The NGA's collection galleries and Sculpture Garden display European and American paintings, sculpture, works on paper, photographs, and decorative arts. Paintings in the permanent collection date from the Middle Ages to the present. The Italian Renaissance collection includes two panels from Duccio's "Maesta", the tondo of the "Adoration of the Magi" by Fra Angelico and Filippo Lippi, a Botticelli work on the same subject, Giorgione's "Allendale Nativity", Giovanni Bellini's "The Feast of the Gods", "Ginevra de' Benci" (the only painting by Leonardo da Vinci in the Americas) and groups of works by Titian and Raphael.
The collections include paintings by many European masters, including a version of "Saint Martin and the Beggar," by El Greco, and works by Matthias Grünewald, Cranach the Elder, Rogier van der Weyden, Albrecht Dürer, Frans Hals, Rembrandt, Johannes Vermeer, Francisco Goya, Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, and Eugène Delacroix, among others. The collection of sculpture and decorative arts includes such works as the "Chalice" of Abbot Suger of St-Denis and a collection of work by Auguste Rodin and Edgar Degas. Other highlights of the permanent collection include the second of the two original sets of Thomas Cole's series of paintings titled "The Voyage of Life", (the first set is at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute in Utica, New York) and the original version of "Watson and the Shark" by John Singleton Copley (two other versions are in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Detroit Institute of Arts).
The National Gallery's print collection comprises 75,000 prints, in addition to rare illustrated books. It includes collections of works by Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, William Blake, Mary Cassatt, Edvard Munch, Jasper Johns, and Robert Rauschenberg. The collection began with 400 prints donated by five collectors in 1941. In 1942, Joseph E. Widener donated his entire collection of nearly 2,000 works. In 1943, Lessing Rosenwald donated his collection of 8,000 old master and modern prints; between 1943 and 1979, he donated almost 14,000 more works. In 2008, Dave and Reba White Williams donated their collection of more than 5,200 American prints.
In 2013, the NGA purchased from a private French collection Gerard van Honthorst's 1623 painting, "The Concert", which had not been publicly viewed since 1795. After initially displaying the "The Concert" in a special installation in the West Building, the NGA moved the painting to a permanent display in the museum's Dutch and Flemish galleries. Art experts estimated the sale price of "The Concert" at $20 million, though the NGA did not reveal the amount that it had paid.
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Niccolini-Cowper Madonna
Painting by Raphael
The Niccolini-Cowper Madonna, also known as the Large Cowper Madonna, is a painting by the Italian High Renaissance artist Raphael, depicting Mary and Jesus Christ as the Christ Child, against a blue sky.
The painting.
The painting may have been the last of Raphael's Florentine paintings before he left for Rome. It is more complex than a similar painting the "Small Cowper Madonna" of a few years earlier. The Virgin and Child fill the canvas, creating an imposing effect. The two are more closely related, both by the positioning of their bodies and their intimacy. Raphael may have derived the talent for creating a natural intimacy through Leonardo da Vinci. The portrayal of the infant's energy is reminiscent of the works of Michelangelo. The compelling, playful Child reaches for the Madonna's top as if wanting to nurse. Both paintings bear the name of their former owners.
An inscription on the painting, center right on the border of Madonna's bodice: MDVIII.R.V.PIN tells that it was painted in 1508 by Raphael of Urbino.
Story.
Cowper's art collection absorbed a great deal of his time and money. His most notable possessions are probably the two Cowper Madonna paintings Raphael: "Small Cowper Madonna" and this painting, the "Niccolini-Cowper Madonna". "Tribuna of the Uffizi" shows Cowper looking at the "Niccolini-Cowper Madonna" painting as it is offered by Johann Zoffany. Zoffany had purchased the painting from the Niccolini family in 1782 and sold it to Cowper in 1785.
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Cows in a River
1650 painting by Aelbert Cuyp
Cows in a River is an oil-on-canvas painting of 1650 by the Dutch Golden Age artist Aelbert Cuyp. It is held at the Museum of Fine Arts, in Budapest.
Description.
The painting depicts frequent subjects of Cuyp's, cows, and was painted prior to the artist's decamping for Rhineland. The canvas shows a group of five cows near the margin of a river, from which only one appears drinking. Several sailing boats are seen, at the right, in the distance. The cloudy sky shows also several birds in their flight.
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Madonna and Child (Cima, Cardiff)
Painting by Cima da Conegliano
Madonna and Child is an oil-on-panel painting by Cima da Conegliano, created in 1500, now in the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff.
This painting depicts the Madonna with a white veil on her head and the Child in her arms. At the base of the work, the marble parapet bears the artist's signature on a cartouche; in the background on the right there is a small Turkish knight.

Virgin and Child with Saints and Donors
Painting by Cima da Conegliano and his workshop
Madonna and Child with Saints is a 1515 oil on panel painting by Cima da Conegliano, now in the Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio.
Description.
At the bottom left and right it portrays the married couple who probably commissioned it for private devotion. The husband may have been named Antonio, since the saint presenting him is Anthony the Great. The work seems to have been left incomplete - the saint on the right (Lucy or Mary Magdalene) hold out her right hand but does not hold an attribute.

Madonna and Child (Cima, Saint Petersburg)
Painting by Cima da Conegliano
Madonna and Child is a painting in oils on canvas of 1496–1499 by Cima da Conegliano. Previously in the L. M. and K. L. Kochubey collection, it was seized by the Soviet Union's State Museum Fund and in 1921 was handed to the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, where it still hangs.
Variants.
Unusually for the artist, who usually produced unique works, this one seems to belong to a group of at least five works produced from a single cartoon:

Madonna and Child (Cima, private collection)
Painting by Cima da Conegliano
Madonna and Child is a 1504 oil on panel painting by Cima da Conegliano, now in a private collection. It was last sold at Christie's in London on 25 November 1966 as part of a sale of works from Sir Herbert Cook's collection and is therefore sometimes known as the "Cook Madonna", not to be confused with another painting of that name by Crivelli now known to be the central panel of the Porto San Giorgio Altarpiece.

Madonna del Ceppo
Painting by Filippo Lippi
The Madonna del Ceppo is a painting by the Italian Renaissance painter Filippo Lippi, commissioned to him between 1452 and 1453. It is housed in the Civic Museum of Prato, Italy (though exposed in the local Museum of Wall Painting, in the Palazzo degli Alberti). The name derives from the fact that it was located over a pit of the garden of Pia Casa dei Ceppi in Palazzo Datini, in Prato.
In the centre, the Madonna and Child are flanked by Saints Stephen and John the Baptist; below, Francesco Datini presents to the Virgin the four "Buonomini" ("Honourable Men") of the Ceppo: Andrea di Giovanni Bertelli, Filippo Manassei, Pietro Pugliesi and Jacopo degli Obizzi.
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Frank Cadogan Cowper
English painter (1877–1958)
Frank Cadogan Cowper (16 October 1877 – 17 November 1958) was an English painter and illustrator of portraits, historical and literary scenes, also described as "The Last Pre-Raphaelite".
Life and work.
Frank Cadogan Cowper was born in Wicken, Northamptonshire, the son of an author and early pioneer of coastal cruising in yachts, Frank Cowper, and grandson of Edward Cadogan, the Rector of Wicken.
Cadogan Cowper was educated at Cranleigh before going on to study art, first at St John's Wood Art School in 1896 and then at the Royal Academy Schools from 1897 to 1902. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1899 and achieved critical acclaim two years later with his "An Aristocrat Answering the Summons to Execution, Paris 1791" (1901). In 1902, Cadogan Cowper spent six months as an apprentice helping Edwin Austin Abbey RA complete a monumental canvas painting "The Coronation of King Edward VII" (now in the Royal Collection) before travelling to Italy to continue his studies.
Cadogan Cowper worked in oils, tempera and watercolours, and simultaneously worked as a book illustrator, providing the illustrations for Sir Sidney Lee's "The Imperial Shakespeare". He contributed to a mural in the Houses of Parliament in 1910-12 along with John Byam Liston Shaw, Ernest Board and Henry Arthur Payne.
As art trends changed, Cadogan Cowper increasingly exhibited his portrait paintings and still continued to produce historical and literary works of art.
Cadogan Cowper retired from London and moved to Gloucestershire. One of his paintings, "The Ugly Duckling," was voted "their favourite painting" by visitors to the Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum in 2005.
The record price for a Cadogan Cowper painting at sale is £469,250 for "Our Lady of the Fruits of the Earth" (1917) at Christie's in London on 17 December, 2011.
The National Gallery of London is staging an exhibition "Saint Francis of Assisi" which includes the work of Frank Cadogan Cowper until 30 July, 2023.
In February 2024, the Musei di San Domenico in Forlì, Italy, will host the exhibition "Pre-Raphaelites: A Modern Renaissance" that will feature the work of Cadogan Cowper "Vanity".
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Madonna of the Animals
Drawing by Albrecht Dürer, c.1503
The Madonna of the Animals is a drawing on card by the artist Albrecht Dürer, from "c." 1503. It measures 32 by 24 cm. Some areas of the drawing also feature watercolour. It is now held in the prints and drawings collection of the Albertina in Vienna.

Samuel Cooper (painter)
17th-century English painter of miniatures
Samuel Cooper (1609 – 5 May 1672), sometimes spelt as Samuel Cowper, was an English miniature painter, and younger brother of Alexander Cooper.
Life.
He is believed to have been born in London, and was a nephew of John Hoskins, the miniature painter, by whom he was educated.
He lived in Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, and frequented the Covent Garden Coffee-House. Samuel Pepys, who makes many references to him, tells us he was an excellent musician, playing well upon the lute, and also a good linguist, speaking French with ease. According to other contemporary writers, he was a short, stout man, of a ruddy countenance. He married one Christiana, whose portrait is at Welbeck Abbey, and he had one daughter. Christiana's sister Edith was the mother of Alexander Pope.
In 1668 he was instructed by Pepys to paint a portrait of Mrs Pepys, for which he charged £30. He is known to have painted also the portrait of John Aubrey, which was presented in 1691 to the Ashmolean Museum. From his correspondence with John Ray, the naturalist. John Evelyn refers to him in 1662, when, on the occasion of the visit that the diarist paid to the king, Cooper was drawing the royal face and head for the new coinage.
Examples of his work are to be found at Windsor Castle, Belvoir Castle, Montague House, Welbeck Abbey, Ham House, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and in the collection of Mr J. Pierpont Morgan. His largest miniature is in the possession of the Duke of Richmond and Gordon at Goodwood. A piece of the artists handwriting is to be seen at the back of one of his miniatures in the Welbeck Abbey collection, and one of his drawings in black chalk is in the University Gallery at Oxford. His own portrait of himself is in the collection of Mr J. Pierpont Morgan.
The date of his death has been handed down by a record in the diary of Mary Beale, the miniature painter; and in some letters from Mr Charles Manners, addressed to Lord Roos, dated 1672, now amongst the Duke of Rutland's papers at Belvoir, the writer refers to Cooper's serious illness on 4 May 1672, and to his doubt as to whether the artist would ever recover. Mary Beale's reference to his decease is in the following words: "Sunday, May 5, 1672 Mr Samuel Cooper, the most famous limner of the world for a face, died."
He is buried in St Pancras Old Church in London. His baroque memorial lies on the far east wall of the church.
According to the art historian George Charles Williamson, "There is urgent demand for a memoir of Samuel Cooper. The details of his life are hardly known. ... The early part of his artistic career he spent in Paris and Holland, and it is very likely that careful research in the records of the Bibliothèque Nationale might reveal information respecting him which would be of the greatest interest."
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Douglas Cowper
Douglas Cowper (30 May 1817 – 28 November 1839) was a British painter.
Life.
Born at Gibraltar, he was third son of a merchant there, who later moved to Guernsey. There Cowper copied the pictures that were to be found in the island. He went to London, and, after lessons from Henry Sass, entered the Royal Academy schools. He gained the first silver medal, for the best copy of Nicolas Poussin's "Rinaldo and Armida" in the Dulwich Picture Gallery. He earned a livelihood by portrait painting.
In 1838 he began to show signs of tuberculosis, which increased in 1839. After a visit to the south of France he returned to Guernsey, and died on 28 November 1839.
Works.
In 1837 Cowper exhibited at the Royal Academy "The Last Interview", followed in 1838 by "Shylock, Antonio, and Bassanio". In 1839 he showed "Kate Kearney" (engraved by John Porter), "Othello relating his Adventures" (engraved by Edward Finden), and "A Capuchin Friar". He also exhibited at the British Institution and the Society of British Artists.
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Wimborne Madonna
1455 painting by Marco Zoppo
The Wimborne Madonna, also known as the Madonna del Latte ("Madonna of the milk") or La Vierge allaitant l'Enfant avec huit anges musiciens ("Virgin nursing the Child with eight angel musicians"), is an oil painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Marco Zoppo, dated to 1455. It was owned by Lord Wimborne and displayed at Canford Manor in the 19th century, and has been held by the Louvre in Paris since 1980.
The work measures . It was painted on a wooden board and transferred to canvas in the 18th century. The artist's signature, on a "cartellino" to the left at the bottom of the painting, indicates the work was made in 1455 when Marco Zoppo was working in the workshop of Francesco Squarcione in Padua: "OPERA DEL ZOPPO DI SQUARCIONE". A second "cartellino" to the right is not legible.
The painting depicts the Virgin Mary nursing the Christ Child. Mary is standing behind a marble parapet and in front of an elaborate marble niche decorated with garlands of fruits and leaves. She is wearing a red dress with blue cloak, and a white headcovering with a crown. She is holds the infant Jesus up in her arms, with the baby stooping to suckle from her uncovered right breast. On the marble ledge in front of the central pair are a pile of books and a pear, and to either sides are groups of cherubs playing musical instruments, with two cherubs reaching up to the garlands. In the background to either side are views of a landscape and a sky with scattered clouds.
The painting may have been made for the Dardini family, based in Venice but also established in Verona and Padua, whose coat of arms is depicted at each end of the parapet. It was in the Palazzo Manfrin in the 19th century, from where it was acquired in 1868 by Sir Ivor Bertie Guest, 2nd Baronet (later 1st Baron Wimborne) and displayed at Canford Manor. It was sold by his descendants in 1980, and acquired by the Louvre.

Madonna and Child with Saints (Cima, Nivå)
Painting by Cima da Conegliano
Madonna and Child with Saints is an undated oil-on-panel painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Cima da Conegliano, now in the Nivaagaards Malerisamling in Nivå, Denmark. Its dimensions are 71.5 cm x 102.5 cm (28.1 in. x 40.3 in.). Its small size means it was probably a devotional image for a private house.

Madonna and Child (Cima, Detroit)
1499-1502 oil on panel painting by Cima da Conegliano
Madonna and Child is a 1499–1502 oil on panel painting by Cima da Conegliano, now in the Detroit Institute of Arts, to which it was given in 1889 by James E. Scripps, having been in Scottish and English collections since around 1842.

Christ and the Samaritan Woman (Kauffman)
Painting by Angelica Kauffman
Christ and the Samaritan Woman at the Well is a painting in oils on canvas of 1796 by Angelica Kauffman, depicting the eponymous Gospel passage. It was bought from the artist's estate in 1829 by Louis I of Bavaria and remained in the House of Wittelsbach until it was transferred to the Wittelsbacher Ausgleichsfonds in 1926; it then passed to the State of Bavaria in 1938. The work now hangs in the Neue Pinakothek in Munich.

Madonna del Bordone
Painting by Coppo di Marcovaldo
The Madonna del Bordone (‘The Madonna of the pilgrim's staff’) is a panel painting by the Italian painter Coppo di Marcovaldo, in the church of Santa Maria dei Servi in Siena, Italy.
Signed and dated 1261, the work is the only certain attribution to the Florentine painter. It was painted after he had been taken prisoner in the Battle of Montaperti in 1260, when the Republic of Siena defeated the Republic of Florence. Coppo paid his ransom by executing the work.
It portrays the Madonna enthroned with a halo and two small angels on her sides. She is enthroned, and supports the blessing Child, who is holding the Book of the Law in his left hand and has a halo surrounded by a jewelled cross.
Half a century later, the heads were repainted by a local artist who added a "sfumato" style influenced by that of Duccio di Buoninsegna, but different from Coppo's art. X-Ray analyses have shown the original heads to be characterized by Coppo's more typically Byzantine manner of painting.
Unlike the concentrated abstraction of contemporary works such as those by Margaritone d'Arezzo, in Coppo's "Madonna" the Child is looking in a tender way at his mother, a gesture aiming to humanize his divine status, but perhaps also to represent the love of the Child for the Catholic Church, symbolized by the Madonna. The posture of the two figures is typical of Byzantine painting of the subject.

Madonna and Child with Saint Catherine and Saint Nicholas
Painting by Cima da Conegliano
Madonna and Child with Saint Catherine and Saint Nicholas is a 1510-1517 oil on canvas painting by Cima da Conegliano, now on long-term loan to the Yale University Art Gallery from the Barker Welfare Foundation in memory of Catherine Barker and Charles V. Hickox.

Madonna and Child (Perugino, Washington)
Painting by Perugino
Madonna and Child is an oil on oak panel painting by Perugino. It dates to around 1501 and is now in the National Gallery of Art in Washington.

Madonna and Child in a Landscape (Cima, Los Angeles)
Painting by Cima da Conegliano
Madonna and Child is a 1496–1499 oil on panel painting by Cima da Conegliano, now in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Variants.
Unusually for the artist, who usually produced unique works, this one seems to belong to a group of at least five works produced from a single cartoon.

The Crowning of Saint Catherine
Painting by Peter Paul Rubens
The Crowning of Saint Catherine is an oil-on-canvas painting by Peter Paul Rubens, now in the Toledo Museum of Art. It portrays Catherine of Alexandria, an early-4th-century martyr, being crowned by the infant Jesus, sitting on his mother's lap.
Rubens originally painted it for the church of the Augustinians in Mechelen (Malines) where it was installed in 1631. In the eighteenth century, the church authorities sold it to a dealer; in 1779, it was purchased by John Manners, 5th Duke of Rutland. It remained as part of the Rutland estate until 1911 when the 8th Duke of Rutland sold it to the German-Jewish banker and science entrepreneur Leopold Koppel.
On Koppel's death in 1933, it was stolen by senior Nazi Hermann Göring for his private collection. At the end of World War II it was discovered by American troops in a salt mine and was eventually reclaimed, with several other paintings, by Leopold's son Albert, who sold it to its present owner in 1950. This makes the painting one of 360 objects in the Toledo Museum of Art's collection that changed hands in Continental Europe during the Nazi era (1933–1945), according to the American Alliance of Museums Nazi-Era Provenance Internet Portal.

Frances Maria Cowper
British religious poet 1726–1797
Frances Maria Cecilia Cowper (née Madan; 1726–1797), sometimes known as Maria Frances, was a religious poet and part of the Madan-Maitland literary coterie.
Life.
Frances Maria Madan was the second of nine children of Judith Madan [née Cowper] (1702–1781) and Colonel Martin Madan (1700–1756). She had weak eyesight as a child and was sent to a Mrs. King, an oculist, from whom she learnt to read and write. She also attended a school in Wells, Somerset and both her parents encouraged her literary interests. She and her sister Penelope were considered "beauties" in London society. Her father travelled, the family's finances were strained, and her mother, whose literary career had ended with her marriage, suffered from recurrent depression. In 1749 or thereabouts, her mother joined the Methodist circle of John Wesley (1703–1791) and Selina Hastings (1707–1791). Cowper and her cousin, author and hymn-writer William Cowper, were coreligionists and from 1766 carried on a written correspondence "almost entirely of a religious character." On 5 Aug. 1749, she married another first cousin, also named William Cowper (1721—1769), of Hertingfordbury. The couple had six children:
Cowper's husband died after two decades of marriage and she lived a widow for another twenty-eight years, first in York and then, after 1772, in London.
Poetry.
Cowper published one volume of religious verse, edited by her famous relative William Cowper. First published in 1792, there was a second edition in 1807 and a third in 1810, both posthumous, as well as two U.S. editions. Initially published as by "a lady," a footnote in the third edition misidentifies the author as "Mrs. Cowper, the aunt of the immortal poet" when she was in fact his cousin. The preface is short and offers a standard modest disclaimer that the poems are published at the request of friends. The collection comprises eighty-nine poems on Christian themes. In the preface and some of the poems, Cowper discusses the advantages of retirement from the world. Her hymn "My span of life will soon be done" has been published in seventy-eight hymnals:
My span of life will soon be done,
The passing moments say;
As length'ning shadows o'er the mead
Proclaim the close of day (ll. 1–4)
Two of her poems were anthologized in Roger Lonsdale's 1989 collection, "Eighteenth-century women poets".
Notes and references.
Notes.
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Sternberg Madonna
Medieval Sculpture
The Sternberg Madonna is one of the most important Czech madonnas in a beautiful style and a national cultural monument. Madonna was discovered in 1957 in the filial church in Babice, which was part of the property of the Sternberg family. It belongs to the group of "beautiful madonnas" from the circle of the Master of the Toruń Madonna. It is on display in the permanent exhibition of medieval sculpture in the Archdiocesan Museum Olomouc.
Description of the statue.
A sculpture in arenaceous marl measuring 84 x 37 x 18 cm, still with the original polychrome on a chalk ground and gilding on a bolus ground.
The Sternberg Madonna has a number of features in common with the "Silesian Madonnas" from Toruń, Wrocław, and Bonn, and Kutal is of the opinion that they all came from the same workshop, that of the Master of the Toruń Madonna. He considers the statues of St John from Třeboň and the Madonna of Venice (Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf) to be the initial types on which the Toruń circle based its work. [6] A special common feature of this group is the contravention of the principle of counterpoise, with the child being positioned above the free leg. These Madonnas are closely related to the sculptures from the Parler masons’ lodge. With their monumental impact, stocky build, and legs planted firmly apart, they differ from the second line of Beautiful Madonnas, represented by the "Krumlov Madonna". The statues derived from the Krumlov model, by contrast, are incorporeally fragile and portrayed in a much more dynamic pose.
The mass of the Sternberg Madonna is distributed around a central axis between the head and the socle, and presents a static impression. The torso is covered by sumptuous drapery, extended in width and divided up by a wealth of generous bowl-shaped, hairpin-shaped, and tube-shaped folds. The Madonna has her legs placed wide apart, with the weight resting on the right leg and the right side jutting out. She holds the child above the free leg on the left side, from where the hem runs diagonally, gathered in the centre into meandering folds, and ending on the right side in a cascade of vertical overturned folds. The system of arranging the folds is consistent throughout the drapery, respecting the rules of movement and forming smooth transitions and connections. The only exception to this logic is the area below the right shoulder, which is not differentiated so much as the other parts. Transferring the Infant Jesus above the free leg deprives him of support, but this is replaced by a formal support in the form of a set of horizontal folds in the drapery in the area of the waist, which are wrapped around him. This renders superfluous a second system of vertical folds in the mantle below the left arm of the Madonna, which we find in the Krumlov type.
Unlike the slender, oval face of the "Krumlov Madonna", the face of the Sternberg Madonna is wide and rounded, similar in type to the sculptures by the circle of the Master of the Toruń Madonna. The Sternberg Madonna resembles the Krumlov type in particular in the way the hair is curled and in the motif of the mother pressing the fingers of her right hand into the soft body of her child. This feature is logical for the Krumlov Madonna, where the weight of the child rests on the hand, but with the Sternberg Madonna it is a supplementary and objectively unnecessary gesture. The motif of the child playing with an apple, on the other hand, is found almost exclusively only with the Toruń type.
The lower part of the front side of the sculpture is a variant of the Toruń Madonna with only minor modifications, and repeats the whole system of the drapery arrangement, including the hairpin-shaped folds extending down the right side to the plinth. The main difference is in the figure of the Infant Jesus, who with the Toruń Madonna clasps the apple with both hands, whereas with the Sternberg Madonna he holds his mother’s veil in his right hand and is turned towards the viewers, as with the "Madonna of Wroclaw". The Sternberg Mary does not have an apple in her right hand, but holds the body of the Infant Jesus. This means that the elbow comes across to the centre of the body and cannot hold down the mantle on the right side. Also absent is the circular movement of the folds, which with both related Madonnas are wrapped around the apple as the central point of the psychological relationships, where the hands of mother and child meet. [11] The veil of the Virgin Mary is not stylised into tubular shapes, but spreads out loosely, and the Infant Jesus holds one tip of it in his hand. This motif and the face of the Madonna have their model in the panel painting of the "Madonna of Veveří".
The reverse side of the statue, where the mantle is arranged into regular vertical folds running from the shoulders down to the plinth, is almost identical with the "Madonna of Wroclaw", the "Madonna" in the LVR-LandesMuseum in Bonn, or the "Krumlov Madonna". The reverse side of the Sternberg Madonna was originally fully three-dimensional, but has been damaged through being trimmed off.
In the opinion of Fajt and Suckale, the whole composition of the sculpture refers to Jesus’ future passion and death, and attention is drawn towards the child by Mary’s movement and gesture and the conception of the drapery. The mother holds the child firmly with her right hand across his naked body, and at the same time draws him back as though she wants to protect him. With her left hand she raises his foot in a premonition that it will be pierced with a nail. The Infant Jesus, with an un-childlike serious expression, clasps an apple representing a symbol of salvation. This conception of the compassionate Madonna, who knows in advance what suffering awaits her child, is based on the mystic vision of St Bridget of Sweden.
The identity of the sculptor.
After removing later layers of polychrome from the reverse side of the statue, an inscription was found carved into the chalk ground layer, consisting of the three Gothic minuscule letters “hen” with the abbreviation “us”, which is the signature of the artist and may mean hen(ricus). For this reason, the sculptor responsible for the Sternberg Madonna is usually thought to have been Heinrich IV Parler (Heinrich of Gmünd), nephew of Peter Parler and foreman in the Parler masons’ lodge at St Vitus Cathedral in Prague. However, artefacts that are well documented as being the work of Heinrich of Gmünd, such as the archivolt of the St Peter portal in Cologne Cathedral or the Pietà in the Church of St Thomas in Brno throw doubt on this attribution because they display considerable differences in style. Furthermore, in the weekly accounts of St Vitus Cathedral Heinrich is referred to using a four-letter abbreviation as “henr(icus)”.
Since statues in the Beautiful Style are connected with the Parler masons’ lodge, Hlobil has proposed a different interpretation of the abbreviation, reading it as Hen(us), in other words Hans, and has suggested that the Sternberg Madonna may be the work of Johann, the younger son of Peter Parler. Johann was master of works at the masons’ lodge of St Vitus Cathedral in 1398-1406, following in the footsteps of his father and his older brother Wenzel. Wenzel and Johann are evidently identical with the “Junkers of Prague”, who in 1404 supplied a Pietà for Strasbourg Cathedral (which has not survived). In addition, in 1990 Lothar Schultes identified Wenzel Parler, who was master of works at St Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna in 1399–1404, as being the "Master of the Krumlov Madonna", although he later abandoned this opinion. The sculptural decoration of these works from the time at which the two artists were active has a different character, and the identification of the "Junkers of Prague" as the sculptors of the Sternberg Madonna thus remains merely a hypothesis.
The connection between the Sternberg Madonna and statues in the pilgrimage church of Ptujska Gora in Slovenia, the work of the "Master of St James", is explained by researchers as the result of the arrival of a group of stonemasons in Ptujska Gora around 1400, who came directly from the St. Vitus masons' lodge in Prague.
Kutal carried out an extensive comparative study and came to the conclusion that the sculptor who made the Sternberg Madonna came from the Parler masons' lodge and was familiar with older Bohemian woodcuts and paintings. Around the year 1390 he created the "Düsseldorf Madonna" as the initial type for a group of Madonnas which included the Sternberg Madonna, and before 1400 he also made the Toruń Madonna. He likewise adopted elements that are typical of the circle of the Master of the "Krumlov Madonna". The ways in which the sculptors responsible for the two types of "Beautiful Madonnas" influenced each other are so significant that it can be assumed that they both worked in the same workshop at the same time. It is probable that the Madonna in St Vitus’ Cathedral with a frame decorated by woodcuts was also made there. The dating of these works corresponds to the period when the “Junkers of Prague” (the sons of Peter Parler) were active in Prague.
The origin of the statue.
The older literature assumes that the sculpture was made for the monastery church of the Augustinians in Šternberk and then, during Baroque adaptations, was moved from there to the sacristy of the church in Babice. In the view of Ivo Hlobil, later alterations to the statue, in particular the trimming down of the rear of the originally fully three-dimensional sculpture and the lack of polychrome on the reverse side, may indicate an intermediary location (before it came to Babice) in the chapel in Sternberg Castle. The castle was built in 1380 by Albert of Sternberg, who was Bishop of Litomyšl and Magdeburg during the reign of Charles IV. In the chapel are winged altarpieces, with the style of the painting similar to that of the Master of the Třeboň Altarpiece, mural paintings from the period around 1380, and also a stone corbel, different in style from the corbel on the opposite wall of the chapel and not inserted into the wall until around the year 1400. The stone corbel is decorated by a relief figure of a stonemason. At that time the castle was owned by Albrecht of Sternberg, Bishop of Olomouc, Archbishop of Magdeburg, and the founder of the Augustinian monastery in Sternberg. The figure of the stonemason would appear to come from the "Beautiful Style" period, and stylistically it is so similar to the Sternberg Madonna that it might be the work of the same sculptor. An experiment was carried out, placing a plaster cast of the Madonna on the corbel, and it showed that the Madonna’s plinth corresponds to a section cut out of the corbel, and that the height and depth of the shrine under the canopy roughly correspond to the altered dimensions of the statue after the back and crown had been trimmed down.
Restoration.
The first restoration of the statue was carried out by František Sysel in 1958. In the process, six later layers of flesh colour polychrome and 4–5 later layers of polychrome on the undergarment, the mantle, and the veil were all removed, leaving just the oldest layers – vermilion on the upper side of the mantle, cobalt blue on the underside, gilding on the hem, dark red on the undergarment, and ochre on the veil. The original flesh colour in an eighth layer was not discovered until a further restoration was carried out in 1998. The restorer believes that the oldest layers of polychrome are on the flesh colour, the wimple, and the gilded areas (the hair, the crown, and the hems of the mantle), that only a chalk-glue ground was applied to the other surfaces, and that painting work was interrupted when the reverse side of the statue was trimmed down. The specific rich vermilion colour of the mantle, which distinguishes the Sternberg Madonna from other Beautiful Style Madonnas, may thus come from a later period, and various art historians have dated it to the 15th or 16th centuries.
Minor damage to the hem of the mantle was in the past repaired by re-carving, and the arrangement of the drapery is therefore in places lacking in logic. Also from a later period is the hole on the top of the head of the Infant Jesus, into which a halo was to be inserted. At an unknown date, the stone crown on the head of the Madonna was shortened and adapted so that a metal crown could be placed on it. The reverse side of the statue, originally intended to be in an open space, was fully three-dimensional, with a fan-shaped arrangement of the folds in the mantle from the shoulders down to the plinth, but not long after completion it was trimmed down, probably in connection with being re-positioned on a corbel. In the 1960s, as a result of poor workmanship when making a cast, the polychrome and chalk ground were damaged in several places.
References.
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Friesentor Madonna
The Friesentor Madonna, also known as the Friesentor Virgin, is a sculpture of the Virgin Mary with Christ Child. It was created sometime around 1370-1380 and is attributed to a local sculptor. It is one of the best examples of a beautiful Madonna, a 15th century style of Madonna statues from Central Europe. This sculpture is on exhibit in the Schnütgen Museum in Cologne, Germany.
History.
The statue is named for its location prior to the Schnütgen Museum's acquisition. According to tradition, the statue was originally from the Friesentor in Cologne, an old city gate destroyed in 1882.
Description.
The statue depicts the Virgin Mary holding the Christ Child upright in her arms. She stands with the distinct S-curve of a beautiful Madonna. The Virgin's cloak delicately drapes over her shoulders and bunches at her left hip underneath the child, exposing the tunic underneath. The fabric of the Virgin's cloak and tunic lie close to her body, and they include waving folds that complement the figure's vertical, S-curved body.
The statue is relatively well preserved, and it retains its original and now faded polychrome. Both the Virgin and the Christ Child are missing their right forearm.
Analysis.
The stylistic features of the statue are similar to statues of the apostles from St. Peter's door at the south entrance of the Cologne Cathedral, attributed to the Parler family, an important family of architects and sculptors (the original statues are preserved at the Kolumba, Cologne's diocesan museum). Though contemporary to the Parlers, this statue is from a different art movement. It features bright, highlighted flesh tones and less prominent folds in the fabric. Based on this, the art piece can be dated to about 1370-1380. This makes it one of the oldest examples of beautiful Madonnas and, at the same time, one of the most valuable. Beautiful Madonnas are characterized by their solely devotional nature. They did not serve as reliquaries and have no space for relics inside. The beautiful Madonna's refined and idealized depiction of the Virgin and Child was most popular in early 15th century Central Europe.
References.
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Madonna and Child with Saints (Cima, Berlin)
Painting by Cima da Conegliano
Madonna and Child with Saints is an oil on panel painting by Cima da Conegliano, created in 1504, now in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin. From left to right the accompanying saints are Peter, Romuald, Benedict of Nursia and Paul.

Madame Auguste Cuoq
Painting by Gustave Courbet
Madame Auguste Cuoq is an oil on canvas by French artist Gustave Courbet, from "c." 1852-1857. The painting depicts Mathilde Desportes (Madame Auguste Cuoq), a French model who often sat for portraits. The painting is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York.
Description.
Courbet painted "Madame Auguste Cuoq" somewhere between 1852 and 1857, and displayed it at an exhibition of his in 1867. The subject of the portrait, the titular Madame Auguste Cuoq, was painted by several notable artists of his time, including Courbet and Jean-Jacques Henner. Notably, Cuoq's husband rejected the portrait, feeling that it did not capture his wife's beauty. Citing its large scale and intimate setting, the painting has been described as one of Courbet's most unusual works. The painting was eventually acquired by the Louisine Havemeyer and later donated by the Havemeyer Collection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
References.
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External links.
 Media related to at Wikimedia Commons

Minnesota State Capitol artwork
History and usage of artwork at the state capitol
The Minnesota State Capitol opened in 1905 with roughly 60 artworks that totaled $300,000, or 7% of the $4.5-million project budget. Cass Gilbert, the architect of the Capitol building, had envisioned that the artworks would add "educational value" and provide for the "advancement of civilization and intelligence." Over the years, more artworks would be added to the Capitol, totaling nearly 150 by 2017. Much of the Capitol art is allegorical, as expressed through murals and sculptures, while some feature key moments in Minnesota history. While the allegorical symbolism used in the paintings would have been more widely understood during the time they were painted, over time the meanings have been challenged.
The Capitol rotunda, and each of the three chambers contain important murals expressed in allegorical symbolism created by Edward Emerson Simmons, Kenyon Cox, Edwin Howland Blashfield, Henry Oliver Walker, John La Farge. The four Supreme Court Chamber murals were painted by La Farge to illustrate four key moments in the history of law. The Minnesota House Chamber features a sculpture by Carlo Brioschi called the "Minnesota Spirit of Government" which features Sacagawea, and French explorers. The Minnesota Senate Chamber contains two murals by Edwin Blashfield; "Minnesota: Granary of the World" shows Minnesota as a leader in agriculture, Civil War contributions and the transition to mechanization. The second mural, "Discoverers and Civilizers Led to the Source of the Mississippi" depicts Native Americans and the spirit of Manitou at the headwaters of Mississippi surrounded by "discoverers" and "civilizers" who are guided from above by angelic beings signifying divine manifest destiny. Decorating the interior of the dome, Elmer Garnsey and his assistant Arthur Willett created the twelve zodiac lunettes as well as lunettes on either side of the east and west grand staircases. Arguably the most familiar allegorical work at the Capitol is gilded sculpture group, "The Progress of the State" sculpted by Daniel Chester French and Edward Clark Potter seated above the main south entrance of the Capitol.
Multiple groups, notably American Civil War veterans and the Minnesota Historical Society along with politicians demanded that the artwork in the Capitol illustrate historic events of Minnesota's past and this resulted in the addition of six large paintings on Minnesota history in the Governor's Reception Room by artists Douglas Volk, Francis D. Millet, Howard Pyle, and Rufus Fairchild Zogbaum. In alcoves on the second floor of the Capitol, rotunda stand the larger-than-life statues of American Civil War heroes John B. Sanborn, Alexander Wilkin, William Colvill, and James Shields by sculptors John Karl Daniels, Catherine Backus, and Frederick Cleveland Hibbard. These works have been criticized by former Governor Mark Dayton, stating they should be replaced with new artwork that broadens the representation of Minnesota.
In 1971 the Minnesota Historical Society along with the Capitol Area Architectural Planning Board (CAAPB) were given control of all works of art and they created a "Policy for Works of Art in the Minnesota State Capitol" to define the process, procedures and guidelines for new art. From 2013 to 2017 the building underwent a $310 million extensive restoration. This included comprehensive cleaning and restoration of historic paintings, murals, and sculptures as well as decorative elements around and outside the building. During the renovation, numerous paintings were criticized for their portrayals of Native Americans and were either moved to locations where expanded interpretation could be given or were removed from the building entirely.
History.
In the planning of the Capitol building from 1896 to 1905, its architect Cass Gilbert had envisioned marble and bronze statuary on the exterior and numerous artworks in the interior. Gilbert sought out many of the finest artists of the period, such as Kenyon Cox, Elmer Garnsey, Edwin Howland Blashfield, Henry Oliver Walker, Edward Emerson Simmons, John La Farge, Douglas Volk, Francis D. Millet, Howard Pyle, and Rufus Fairchild Zogbaum.
In the 1901 architect report, Gilbert noted his vision for the art:
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Much of the art planned for the Capitol was allegorical, as expressed through murals. As work continued after 1900 on the interior multiple groups, American Civil War veterans and the Minnesota Historical Society, along with politicians, demanded that the artwork in the Capitol illustrate historic events of Minnesota's past. In regards to "The Progress of the State", one critic of the time encouraged Minnesotans to, "Take a sledge hammer and smash them Roman bronchos and that chariot! Clean 'em out and put a grand heroic statue of Alexander Ramsey in their stead!" The current ornate look of the Governor's Reception Room was partly a response to Minnesotans' suggestions for pictures from their own history which gave Gilbert the opportunity to upscale his plans for the room and to include six large paintings that span 200 years of the area's history. Gilbert advised the Board on the series of Civil War paintings for the Governor's Reception Room and expressed his disapproved of the four Civil War Alcove monuments on the second floor rotunda.
When the State Capitol opened in 1905 it had roughly 60 artworks that totaled $300,000, or 7% of the $4.5-million project budget. Additional art has been added inside the premises. In 1944, the custom of displaying governor portraits in the public corridors was initiated. Over the years artworks added to the Capitol total nearly 150 by 2017. In 1971, the Capitol Area Architectural Planning Board and the Minnesota Historical Society were entrusted to approve design, structural composition and location of all works of art.
2013–2017 renovation.
The Minnesota State Capitol underwent a comprehensive restoration project from 2013 to 2017, the first major renovation since the building first opened. The project also included a restoration of the capitol's many works of fine art. This was the first time the murals in the Capitol had comprehensive restoration plan. Before that any restoration work done to the murals was the result of an emergency circumstance or was done by workers often with brush and a pail of water to scrub off the grime accumulated on the murals from smoke, coal dust and other impurities approximately every two decades. Because the delicate murals are secured to their locations nearly all were restored in place. Conservation included extracting grime, old yellowed varnish, and any overpainting done in past restorations using solvents when they could but also applying a variety of small tools. Some murals needed removal from the walls due to the extent of damage and conservation work needed to the mural and/or the wall behind it. Specifically, five of dome's zodiac lunettes and the fourth panel in the Simmons's Civilization of the Northwest mural series in the rotunda required the challenging task of being removed from the walls to conservation labs.
During the renovations, numerous paintings depicting Native Americans were removed or moved to new locations where expanded interpretation could be done.
Capitol roof.
Quadriga and the Virtues.
 Located on the exterior above the southern entrance to the building is a gilded quadriga called "The Progress of the State" which was sculpted by Daniel Chester French and Edward Clark Potter, a specialist in equestrian and other animal sculptures who teamed up with French to create the four horses in the monument. The inspiration for the Minnesota quadriga, a group of figures entitled "Progress of the State", was the , a statue depicting Christopher Columbus standing in a four horse chariot guided by two maidens carrying staffs of victory, that French and Potter had modeled for the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago. Gilbert saw this quadriga group and made plans to have artists adapt it for Minnesota. It was completed and raised to the roof of the capitol in 1906. The quadriga arrangement is a style of statue reproducing ancient Greek and Roman four-horse chariots. The four horses represent the power of nature: earth, wind, fire and water. The women leading the horses symbolize agriculture and industry, and the man on the chariot represents Minnesota.
Re-gilding the sculpture in 23 karat gold leaf is necessary approximately every 20 years. Every year, the condition of the statuary is reviewed with conservators making slight repairs and touching up the gold leaf as necessary. The sculpture group underwent re-gilding in 1949 and again in 1979. In 1994/1