European Art, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

European Art collection of Virginia Museum of Fine Arts includes more than 10,000 objects in all media—including paintings, sculptures, decorative arts, and works on paper—dating from the early medieval period to the mid-20th century.

Highlights
An excellent survey collection, VMFA’s European art holdings include Mellon Collections of British sporting art, French 19th-century art, jewelry and objects by Jean Schlumberger, and American equestrian painting; the Gans Collection of English silver with more than one hundred objects by noted London craftsmen; an important group of animal bronzes by Antoine-Louis Barye; and the extensive print collection of Frank Raysor.

Ewer
Though constructed well after the defeat of the last Moorish king in Spain by Catholic monarchs in 1492, this elaborately inlaid ewer and basin are engraved with strapwork motifs reminiscent of earlier Islamic-style deocration.

This object is featured in the museum’s “Jamestown & Beyond: Life in 1607” educational resource available on our website: vmfa.museum/learn

At the Milliner
Edgar Degas, French, 1834 – 1917
In the 1880s Degas created an important series of paintings and pastels centered on the contemporary subject of fashionable women in millinery shops. However, he here eschews the documentary in order to achieve another goal:

“At the moment, it is fashionable to paint pictures where you can see what time it is, like in a sundial. A painting requires a little mystery, some vagueness, some fantasy. When you always make your painting perfectly plain you end up boring people.” – Edgar Degas

Battle of the Centaurs and the Lapiths
William-Adolphe Bouguereau, French, 1825 – 1905
In the 19th century, the French academic system privileged “history painting,” which was considered to be the highest and most important category of painting, and therefore the ultimate expression of artistic talent. History paintings by definition are multi-figure scenes with narratives taken from literature, history, mythology, or the Bible. Adolphe Bouguereau painted Battle of the Centaurs and Lapiths while he was a student at the French Academy in Rome, which was a highly desirable situation for a young French artist. While living in Rome, Bouguereau was surrounded by the city’s ancient art and architecture, and this immersion in the past was itself considered crucial to the artist’s development. The painting depicts a highly dramatic moment taken from Greek mythology, the Battle of the Lapiths and the Centaurs. The two groups had been long-standing enemies, but the Lapiths attempt to reconcile with the Centaurs and invite them to a wedding banquet and celebration. The Centaurs, mythological creatures who were half-man and half-horse, got drunk and caused mayhem when they tried to abduct the bride. In Bouguereau’s image, the viewer sees the most violent chapter of the story. This is a clash of civilizations, and the dead and wounded from both sides litter the ground. As the two central male figures fight over the woman, their bodies create a dramatic pyramid-shaped composition, which allows the eye to be drawn toward the terrified bride, partially draped in a violently red cloak. Bouguereau relied on poses derived from ancient sculpture throughout the work.

The Crucifixion with Saints Anthony Abbot, Catherine, Jerome, James and Two Donors
This triptych (three panels hinged together) is one of only two known panel paintings by Altichiero Altichieri, both executed during his final years in Verona. The confident handling of paint, as well as the dramatic approach to faces and figures, demonstrates why Altichiero was one of the foremost northern Italian artists of the late 14th century. Although the classicism yet to dominate Italian art is not readily apparent, it is important to note the resemblance of the format to an ancient triumphal arch. This reference denoted the artist’s own cultural sophistication and Christ’s “triumph” over death.

In the center panel, the Virgin Mary and St. John the Evangelist mourn the crucified Christ. The skull at the foot of the cross refers to Golgotha, “the place of the skull.” According to Christian tradition, Adam, whose sin Christ’s sacrifice redeemed, was buried there.

On the side panels are St. Anthony Abbot (upper left) identified by his monk’s cloak and cross, and St. Jerome, one of the four Church Fathers (upper right), wearing a cardinal’s hat and holding a miniature church. Below them, St. Catherine was her martyr’s wheel and St. James with his pilgrim’s staff accompany the man and woman (represented kneeling in prayer) who commissioned the painting. A conservation study has revealed that the original donors’ portraits were deliberately repainted, possibly when the triptych changed ownership soon after it was commissioned. The later paint has been removed and the original portraits (slightly damaged) are visible once again.

The Finding of the Laocoön
Hubert Robert, French, 1733 – 1808
The ancient sculpture known as the Laocoön (now in the Vatican Museums) is one of the most famous antiquities in existence. It was unearthed in 1506 in a vineyard planted over the ruins of Emperor Nero’s Golden House in Rome. Hubert Robert, however, has placed the event in an imaginary vaulted ruin based on the architecture in Raphael’s painting of the School of Athens in the state rooms of the Vatican. Robert created this elaborate allegory on art and collecting for the Comte de Vaudreuil, a great collector whose portrait by Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun is also in VMFA’s collection. The tall bearded onlooker in the lower right foreground represents Michelangelo, who was reportedly present at the discovery and able to immediately identify it as the famed lost statue, which had previously only been known from written descriptions.

New On View: Two Albrecht Dürer Prints
Don’t miss this rare opportunity to see two works on paper by German artist Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528). The Woman of the Apocalypse and the Seven-Headed Dragon (detail on right) is the latest work by Dürer acquired by the museum. Created between 1496 and 1498 before the Reformation began, this woodcut illustrates the end of days as described in Revelations. The engraving St. Anthony Reading, in contrast, was a bequest by Judge John Barton Payne made in 1935, the year before VMFA opened to the public. Dürer produced this contemplative scene in 1519 just after the events that began the tumultuous Reformation.

Moroni’s Two Donors in Adoration before the Madonna and Child is currently appearing in The Frick Collection exhibition Moroni: The Riches of Renaissance Portraiture, on view in New York City until June 2, 2019. The Moroni will return to its usual location in the Renaissance Art Gallery this summer.

Mellon Collections On Tour
The esteemed French Impressionist Art and British Sporting Art collections at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts will be embarking on national and international tours during the next two years, creating opportunities for more people to view these important paintings and sculptures that were donated to the museum by Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon.

Impressionism & 19th Century Art
The Mellon Collections comprise masterpieces and key works of French art representing every important movement and artist from Romanticism to the School of Paris, with deep holdings of Edgar Degas (Off view 2018 – 2020). A separate gallery is devoted to Academic art of the 19th century containing important works by William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Franz Xaver Winterhalter, and Gustave Doré among others.

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, United States
The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, or VMFA, is an art museum in Richmond, Virginia, in the United States, which opened in 1936.

The museum is owned and operated by the Commonwealth of Virginia, while private donations, endowments, and funds are used for the support of specific programs and all acquisition of artwork, as well as additional general support. Admission itself is free (except for special exhibits). It is one of the first museums in the American South to be operated by state funds. It is also one of the largest art museums in North America. VMFA ranks as one of the top ten comprehensive art museums in the United States.

The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, together with the adjacent Virginia Historical Society, anchors the eponymous “Museum District” of Richmond (alternatively known as “West of the Boulevard”).