Cathy's Art Diary

Thoughtful online talk from the National Gallery taking three pictures of women from the collection where they are not named and represent a type not an individual while obviously being a portrait of a real person. Holly Morrison, Kate Devine and Jenny Staff each took a picture and talked us through different ways to looking at it. These including “The Old Woman/The Ugly Duchess” by Quintin Massys from 1513, the portrait of a black woman shown here by an unknown French 19th century artist and “Miss Lala at the Cirque Fernando” by Edward Degas in 1879. Although in the latter picture we do know the subject they discussed whether Degas was painting her as a type rather than wanting to capture her individuality . This was an interesting contrast to the second picture, which I didn’t know and has been on long term loan to Dublin, where we aren’t burdened by what we know about the artist when we look at it. The Massys may represent a satirical type or a portrait of a real woman with Pag...

Fascinating online lecture from the National Gallery using a 15th century birth tray from their collection to discuss birth, love and marriage in the period.   Kate Devine and Marc Woodhead explained what a birth tray or Desco da Parto was ie a decorative tray used to carry food for a woman giving birth or lying in which were also used as decoration for the home. There often had pictures of mythical scenes to do with love, birth or marriage on one side and of babies or coats of arms on the reverse.   They then looked in detail at an example from the National Gallery’s collection by the workshop of Apollinio de Giovanni and Marco del Buono called The Triumph of Love from 1455-6. They explained how it was based on a poem by Petrarch and looked at how it both mirrored the story and differed from it.   In particular they discussed the two figures of black African riders which are caricatures which may represent universality or just reflect the make up of a court at the ...