The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (498 page)

(1684–1756).
English engraver and antiquarian. He was a prolific engraver of portraits and antiquarian subjects (he was official engraver to the Society of Antiquaries, 1717–56), but is important chiefly for the voluminous notes he collected for a history of art in England (now in the BL, London). A marvellously rich storehouse of information, they were used by Horace
Walpole
as a basis for his
Anecdotes of Painting in England
(1762–71) and have been published separately (6 vols., 1930–55).

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

Victoria and Albert Museum
, London.

One of the world's greatest and most varied collections of
fine
and
applied art
. It was the brainchild of Prince Albert and developed out of the Great Exhibition (1851), the profits from which were used to buy a site in South Kensington for a cultural centre of museums and colleges. The Museum of Ornamental Art (as it was originally called) was opened by Queen Victoria on the present site in 1857. The nucleus of the collection consisted of objects of applied art bought from the Great Exhibition, which had been temporarily displayed in a Museum of Manufactures in Marlborough House. Albert's ideal was to improve the standard of design in Britain by making the finest models available to study. A new building on the same site was begun in 1899, designed by Sir Aston Webb , and the name of the Museum was changed to ‘The Victoria and Albert Museum’ at the ceremony of laying the foundation-stone by Queen Victoria . The building was opened by King Edward VII in 1909. At this time the scientific collections were assigned to a separate Science Museum. The collections of the V&A are exceedingly rich, incorporating the national collections of post-
classical
sculpture (excluding modern), of British
miniatures
, of
watercolours
, and English silversmiths’ work. The National Art Library is also part of the museum. There are great collections of, for example, ceramics, furniture, and musical instruments, and Oriental art is strongly represented. The highlights of the collection include the tapestry
cartoons
by
Raphael
(on loan from the Royal Collection), which form the most important ensemble of High
Renaissance
art outside Italy; the representation of Italian Renaissance sculpture (again the finest outside Italy); and the collection of
Constable's
work—the largest anywhere. The V&A has five branch museums in London: the Bethnal Green Museum of Childhood; Ham House; Osterley Park House; the Theatre Museum; and the Wellington Museum.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

Celebrated larger-than-life Greek marble statue (Louvre, Paris) representing winged Victory (Nike) alighting on the bows of a galley. The figure, discovered on the Greek island of Samothrace in 1863, is lithely outstretched and draped with magnificent swirls. Erected around 200 BC above a rocky pool, it showed its best view obliquely and from below, and now is appropriately and dramatically placed at the top of the main staircase in the Louvre.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

(1716–1809).
French painter. A winner of the
Prix de Rome
, he was in Rome at a time (1743–50) that coincided with excavations at Herculaneum and Pompeii, and in his lifetime he gained a great reputation (partly self-promoted) as a pioneer of the
Neoclassical
style. He was enthusiastic for the ideas of
Winckelmann
, but his
classicism
was of a very superficial kind, consisting of prim and sentimentalized anecdote or allegory with pseudo-antique trappings (
The Cupid Seller
, Château de Fontainebleau, 1763). Nevertheless, he gauged the taste of the time well and had a career of exemplary success, becoming director of the French Academy in Rome (1776) and First Painter to the King (1789). He was made a senator by Napoleon after the Revolution, a count in 1808, and was buried in the Panthéon.
David
was his most important pupil. His son,
Joseph-Marie the Younger
(1762–1848), was also a painter, mainly of portraits.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

(1755–1842).
French portrait painter, daughter and pupil of the pastellist
Louis Vigée
(1715–67). She was also taught by Claude-Joseph
Vernet
and
Greuze
and in 1776 she married the picture dealer Jean-Baptiste Lebrun . Renowned for her beauty, wit, and charm as well as for her talent, she had a highly successful career, becoming a friend of Queen Marie-Antoinette, whom she portrayed many times. On the outbreak of the Revolution she left France (1789), travelling to Italy (1789–93), Vienna (1793–4), and St Petersburg (1795–1802), before returning to Paris (1802). Disliking the Napoleonic regime she left almost immediately and stayed in England (1802–5), the Netherlands, and Switzerland (1805–9) before returning once again to Paris. She received distinguished patronage wherever she went and was admitted to several
academies
. Her work is graceful, charming, pleasingly sentimental, and delicately executed. There are good examples in the Louvre. Her memoirs (3 vols., 1835–7) give a lively picture of the Europe of her day as well as an account of her own works, and vividly demonstrate what a redoubtable woman she was: ‘on the day that my daughter was born I never left my studio and I went on working…in the intervals between labour pains.’

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search