This Henry Gillard Glindoni painting depicts John Dee, a Renaissance man both figuratively and literally. Dee was a mathematician, student of the occult,  astrologer, and natural philosopher who, at one point, became the medical and scientific adviser of Queen Elizabeth I ("John Dee"). In this depiction of John Dee his is seen either peforming an experiment or perhaps conjouring a spirit, but this is not the initial composition that Glindoni had in mind. Recent x-rays show that Glindoni had originally painted several skulls into the scene, which were later painted over (Brown). This type...

 How many museums can you name that house just Academic Art from the 19th and 20th centuries in the USA?  None. Neither could we, until we found the Dahesh Museum. This enviable collection boasts work by well known artists such as William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Rosa Bonheur, Jean-Léon Gérôme, and Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema. It also includes impressive works by lesser known artists such as Jaroslav Čermák, Pascal Adolphe Dagnan-Bouveret, and Léon Augustin Lhermitte. 

         While the collection is not currently on display The Dahesh Museum rec...

Is there a tool for those days when you just can't mix the right shade of sky-blue? Introducing, the cyanometer. Created by Horace-Bénédict de Saussure, this circular color-value scale helps you to determine the blueness of the sky. 

"But how to measure 'blueness'? Using suspensions of Prussian blue, Saussure dyed paper squares every shade of blue he could distinguish between white and black. These were assembled into a numbered colour circle that could be held up to the zenith at a standard distance from the eye - the matching square established the degree of blue" (Sella) 

Rea...

Have a hankering to copy a Raeburn? RAR recently added the Scottish National Galleries to our list of museums that allow copyists to work in wet media. Thank you to the Scottish National Galleries! For more information go to Museum Copying.

Image: "Portrait of Mrs. Eleanor Urquhart" by Henry Raeburn. Andrew W. Mellon Collection. Courtesy of National Gallery of Art, Scotland. Link

 A couple of years ago the proprietor of Art & Libri in Florence, Italy, mentioned a new Antonio Mancini catalogue raisonné. Mancini deserves this more than many other coffee table gods. Read more about this upcoming monograph on Leo Mancini-Hresko's blog here.

Image: Detail from, "Il Saltimbanco" by Antonio Mancini. 1879. Credit Line: Vance N. Jordan Collection, 2004. Courtesy of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Link.

Realist Art Resource has just unveiled the Artistic Anatomy gallery, check it out here. We will be adding to it periodically, so stick around. If you know of any museum collections housing anatomical drawings, models, or casts from the 18th & 19th centuries let us know by filling out the contact form.

Image: Muscles and tendons of the back: écorché figure. Red chalk and pencil drawing by or associated with A. Durelli, ca. 1837.
Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons Attribution only license CC BY 4.0

http://wellcomeimages.org/indexplu...