1852-1911 Edwin Austin Abbey Gallery Edwin Austin Abbey (April 1, 1852 ?C August 1, 1911) was an American artist, illustrator, and painter. He flourished at the beginning of what is now referred to as the "golden age" of illustration, and is best known for his drawings and paintings of Shakespearean and Victorian subjects. His most famous work, The Quest of the Holy Grail, resides in the Boston Public Library. Abbey was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1852. He studied art at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts under Christian Schuessele. Abbey began as an illustrator, producing numerous illustrations and sketches for such magazines as Harper's Weekly and Scribner's Magazine. His illustrations began appearing in Harper's Weekly at an early age: before Abbey was twenty years old. Abbey was an illustrator with Harper's Weekly from 1871-1874. He moved to England in 1878 where he was made a full member of the Royal Academy in 1898. In 1902 he was chosen to paint the coronation of King Edward VII. It was the official painting of the occasion and, hence, resides at Buckingham Palace. In 1907 he declined an offer of knighthood in order to retain his U.S. citizenship. Friendly with other expatriate American artists, he summered at Broadway, Worcestershire, England, where he painted and vacationed alongside John Singer Sargent at the home of Francis Davis Millet. He completed murals for the Boston Public Library in the 1890s. The frieze for the Library was titled "The Quest for the Holy Grail." It took Abbey eleven years to complete this series of murals in his England studio. In 1908-1909, Abbey painted a number of murals and other artworks for the rotunda of the new Pennsylvania State Capitol in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. His works in that building include allegorical medallions representing Science, Art, Justice, and Religion in the Capitol Rotunda, large lunette murals underneath the Capitol dome, and a number of works in the House Chamber. Unfortunately, Abbey became ill with cancer in 1911 slowing his work. At the time, he was working on the "Reading of the Declaration of Independence Mural" which was later installed in the House Chamber. Abbey was so ill, that his studio assistant, Ernest Board completed the work with little supervision from Abbey. Later in 1911, Abbey died, leaving his commission for the State Capitol of Pennsylvania unfinished. John Singer Sargent, a friend and neighbor of Abbey, and studio assistant Board completed the "Reading of the Declaration of Independence Mural." Abbey's works were installed in the Rotunda and House Chamber. Two rooms from Abbey's commission were left undone, and the remainder of the commission was given to Violet Oakley. Oakley completed the works from start to finish using her own designs. Abbey was elected to the National Academy of Design and The American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1937 Yale University became the home for a sizable collection of Abbey's works, the result of a bequest from Abbey's widow.  Related Paintings of Edwin Austin Abbey :. | Last Judgment and the Wise and Foolish Virgins | The November evening | The crossroads of the forest landscape | The Surveyor: Portrait of Captain John Henry Lefroy or Scene in the Northwest | Composition I (Stil Life). |
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Johann Caspar Schneider
Rhine valley by Johann Caspar Schneider in 1820
Giacomo Francesco Cipper
(Feldkirch, 1664 - Milan, 1736) was a German painter active in Milan from 1696 to 1736. Of German origin, he was active in Milan in the first half of the 18th century. Fertile painter of scenes of kind of formulation caravaggesca, his first attributed work is dated 1700; he operated in Lombardia and in Veneto ( Hunters and greengrocers , Modena, Gallery Campori; Farmers' family , Venice, Galleries of the academy). Subsequently the artist, perhaps under the influence of the Cerruti (some of whose works were once attributed to Cipper), to the scrupulous surrender of the detail it replaced a less illustrative vision, more sensitive to the games of light. His last known work is Self-portrait (1736, Hampton Court).
Sylvester Shchedrin
1791-1830,was a Russian landscape painter. Sylvestr Shchedrin was born in St. Petersburg into the family of the famous sculptor Pheodosiy Shchedrin, rector of the Imperial Academy of Arts. The landscape painter, Semion Shchedrin, was his uncle. In 1800, Sylvester Shchedrin entered the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg, where he studied landscape painting. Among his teachers were his uncle, Semion Shchedrin, Fedor Alekseev, M.M. Ivanov and Thomas de Thomon.[1]. In 1811e graduated with several awards including the Large Gold Medal for his painting View from Petrovsky Island that gave him a scholarship to study abroad. Lake of Albano, 1825Sylvester left for Italy in 1818, delayed due to the Napoleonic Wars. In Italy, he studied the old masters in Rome; goes to Naples to paint watacolrs ordered by Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich of Russia; then return back to Rome. The biggest achievement of that period was New Rome. castle Sant'Angelo (1823) It was such a great success that he has painted 8..10 variations of the painting, each from a slightly different angle and with different details. His pension ended in 1823, but he decided to stay in abroad as a freelance painter. In 1825 he finished his work Lake of Albano that was a new step in his movement to the natural composition. In this painting he relaxed the boundary between subject and background, moved from using the formal colors. Shchedrin had many commissions and grew to become a well-known artist in Italy. He lived in Rome and Naples, working en plein air, drawing bays and cliffs and views of small towns and fishermen villages. One of his favorite motifs were terraces in vines with a view of the sea. Referred as the images of the "Midday Paradis".At the end of the 1820s, Shchedrin began to draw nighttime uneasy, almost nightmarish landscapes, which may have been inspired from his gradually declining health. He died in Sorrento in 1830.