26 July 2021

Museum Monday 2021/30

 


a detail of the Botticelli-inflected Love & the Maiden, by John Roddam Spencer Stanhope, now at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco

19 July 2021

Museum Monday 2021/29

 


I was actually in a museum this week, for the first time in nearly a year and a half, so this detail of a mosaic panel from the House of the Geometric Mosaics in Pompeii comes from Last Supper in Pompeii: From the Table to the Grave, on view at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco through 29 August. This astonishing tableau is one of the treasures of the exhibit, as demonstrated by its many manifestations in the gift shop, and no wonder: not only are the very tiny stones arranged to give an accurate depiction of each of the many species shown, but each fish also expresses a surprising amount of personality, an attribute not usually thought of in connection with sea life.

12 July 2021

09 July 2021

05 July 2021

Museum Monday 2021/27

 


a detail of The Birth of Venus (or possibly the triumph of Galatea?) by Nicolas Poussin, once in the collection of Catherine the Great and now in the possession of the Philadelphia Museum of Art

02 July 2021