Friday, April 19, 2013

Who painted this? #25

Who painted this? #25
You probably need to try and work out where this is and what time of year it is.  There's a few clues so take a good look!

How to participate in "Who painted this? #25"

PLEASE make sure you read the rules before posting a comment - and ONLY POST ON THIS BLOG what you think is the answer.

Click this link to read THE RULES for participating in this challenge (this saves having to copy them out for each post!).

In short:
  • use your brains not software to find the answer
  • search using words only on a database of images
  • leave your answer as a comment on this blog
  • if correct it will not be published until the next post - which provides the answer
  • if wrong it will be published
  • do not leave the answer on Facebook!
  • the winner - who gets a mention and a link on/from this blog - is the first person to give me a completely correct answer for ALL the things I want to know

Who Painted This #24 - The Answer
Erica massoni L.f. (Delineations of Exotick Plants) by Franz Bauer
Erica massoni L.f.
(Delineations of Exotick Plants)
by Franz Bauer
  • Title of the artwork: Erica massoni L.f.
  • Name of the artist who created this artworkFranz Bauer
  • Date it was created: 1796-1803
  • Media used: hand-coloured engraving
  • Where it lives now: in Delineations of Exotick Plants (there are copies in various libraries generally associated with Botanical Gardens)
The image relates to a rare book which was commissioned by Kew Gardens.  This hand-coloured engraving can be found in a book called Delineations of exotick plants cultivated in the Royal Garden at Kew .

The engravings were drawn and coloured, and the botanical characters displayed according to the Linnean system by Francis Bauer (or Franz Bauer), "botanick painter to his majesty ; published by W.T. Aiton, His Majesty's gardener at Kew."  Franz Bauer worked as a botanical illustrator at Kew Gardens for nearly fifty years.  Francis Masson was sent by Kew Gardens to South Africa in 1772 to collect the Ericas and bring them back to Kew where Bauer then illustrated them.

It's been said that Wilfrid Blunt "would unhesitatingly give first place to Francis [Franz] Bauer" as "the greatest botanical artist of all time".

You can see the whole book in the digital archive of the State Library of New South Wales

A copy of the book was put up for auction at Bonhams - unbound and sold as a collection of plates dated 1793 was valued at between £7,000 and £9,000 because of its botanical importance as the first record of several species - but failed to sell.

Who guessed correct

It seems as if this time it all depended on whether or not you recognised the plant as an erica (heather).

There were six correct answers, starting with Carol Lee Beckx (Art matters)

Others who got the answer correct were:

16 comments:

  1. ...OK I see horses and rather sparse trees, late afternoon... I'll start there.

    Had no clue on last one...
    finally got in just after you posted...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Try clicking on the picture and looking at it against a black background.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I couldn't find any information about the location of the original Bauer watercolors for those engravings. Do you know where they wound up?

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  4. The originals should be at Kew - because Franz Bauer worked for Kew.

    However they were in general seen in the book and there aren't many copies in existence.

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  5. I was absolutely sure it was a Degas. If there's one thing I know, it's the historically well known painters and art history. Although he's known for his dancers, his style is unmistakable and I'd seen a few of his landscapes before. So, I'm hoping I followed the rules. I went to Google images and typed Edgar Degas. I have no idea where it was painted (am guessing France as it's Degas) and couldn't decide between Autumn (the trees look bare) or Spring, it's didn't look cold enough for Autumn. But I start with Autumn but got tired of looking through that bank of images, so replaced Autumn with Spring and found it! The picture links to the Edgar Degas Gallery. I left it at that as I didn't want to break any rules if possible. Am guessing I picked the correct artist straight off. No idea what the painting is called. I can find that out easily enough but am guessing it has Spring in the title :)..... Tig Hobcroft (just glad I knew this one - no idea on the Bauer image!)

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  6. Hah! Shouldn't have been so confident. I couldn't resist and visited the site for a better look. Turns out that it's painted by someone else who obviously learned 'in the style of 'Edgar Degas! So I was wrong and won't spill the beans :) So I can pick his fans!

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  7. Title of the artwork: Early spring afternoon central park 1911
    Name of the artist who created this artwork: Willard Leroy Metcalf
    Date it was created: 1911
    Media used: Oil on canvas
    Where it lives now: in Brooklyn Museum as part of American Identities: A New Look, Expanding Horizons, 5th Floor

    I took a guess at it being New York's Central Park and initially thought it might be winter from the lack of foliage on the trees With no matching results from a Google search I changed to spring - result!

    The museum itself looks interesting with collections similar to the V & A in London. I'll have to put it on the visit list if I ever get to New York.

    Alastair Fraser

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  8. Early Spring Afternoon Central park 1911
    Artist: Willard Leroy Metcalf
    Location: Brooklyn Museum of Art
    Medium: Oil Painting on Canvas

    The trees look like it's early Spring
    Googled painting park early spring and there it was.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Willard Leroy Metcalf 1858-1925
    Early Spring Afternoon Central Park
    1911
    Oil on canvas
    Brooklyn Museum NY

    Studied at Boston Museum of Fine Arts
    Associated with American Impressionism

    ReplyDelete
  10. ... NY central Park?
    I see water, statue, what looks like the moon low in the sky... then there is that green dome...
    thought it might be Pissarro, Sisley, Hassam?

    Still looking, thought I would get this one quick.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Katherine,
    My name is Barbara Jackson, delapazbcs@hotmail.com
    And I have a blog paintingwithpencil.blogspot.com
    The information above is to let you know that I am an honest player. I sent you my answer to who painted this #25, but I neglected to explain how I did it. So here it is.
    I immediately knew that it was a painting of a large park looking into a city. I thought it was fall. I have seen Central Park from above in person and in many movies. What threw me was the dome. I started thinking 19th century Spain. But, that lead me nowhere. So, I thought of New York in this same period. I thought it could have been done by E. Lawson one of the Eight of the Ashcan School who worked in this area. I checked his painting style against the painting. It was a close fit but I still could not find the painting. I began to check his contemporaries, landscape artists that also painted NYC
    and Central Park.
    Google images yielded the answer. Willard Leroy Metcalf, Early Spring Afternoon Central Park 1911. This is a familiar part of the country for me, I lived in NJ, I studied drawing in Boston under another Metcalf....
    Conger Metcalf. Don't know if they are related,
    Could be coincidence. Thank you for posting these challenges......they are fascinating.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Hi Katherine,

    I bet I am too late again.

    Title of the artwork: Early Spring Afternoon--Central Park
    Artist who created this artwork: Willard Leroy Metcalf
    Date it was created: 1911
    Media: Oil on canvas
    Where it lives now: The Brooklyn Museum
    How do I know this:

    I convinced myself it was a view from Primrose Hill or Regents Park by Alfred Sisley or another of the European impressionists – even though the geography is all wrong. I wasted time with searches based on these locations. They kept returning links to the picture on your blog, which reinforced my opinion that I was on the right track. I wonder why searches for Regents Park bought up links to the image on your blog?

    Then I tried a simple “Painting Central Park Spring” image search in Google and that returned the image on Wikipedia Commons. The information is from the Brooklyn Museum website.

    Thanks for interesting challenges,

    Mark

    ReplyDelete
  13. .... and I finally found the stupid painting!

    I knew I had seen this before so I thought it would be EASY.
    I posted a comment listing 3 artists I thought it might be and you did not post the comment so I thought it was one of them.
    I went through EVERY painting they did, NOT THERE!

    ... then I remembered guessing the location, duh!,
    NY Central Park.
    I googled 'impressionist landscape painting ny central park' and found it!
    BTW does anyone know what the green dome is?

    Oh well, so much for quick finds.
    Did make some new discoveries and my search skills are improving so all was not lost.

    Originally found it on a post 'About.com.Denver' which was posting an exhibition from 2008 at the Denver Art Museum "...Admire light-filled landscapes..." and they were right, there were some really great light-filled paintings in it, especially the Sargent, the Weir, the Daubigny, the Harpignies...and ... alas... a HASSAM!
    Very inspiring!

    http://denver.about.com/od/artsentertainment/ig/Landscapes-from-Impressionism/Landscape--Early-Spring-Aftrn.htm
    (Click the left right arrows to see the ten paintings)

    Katherine, for the next one perhaps you could use the "Mona Lisa", something a little easier!
    So... here you go, better late than never.

    artist: Willard Leroy Metcalf
    title: Early Spring Afternoon, Central Park
    date: 1911
    medium: oil on canvas
    location: Brooklyn Museum, USA

    ReplyDelete
  14. I didn't know where this was. I did a tour of Italy first then to Istanbul using the position of the moon as a clue. I thought it was a river with boats on approaching sea. Until I spotted what looks like a statue. That gave me the idea to include park in the search and hey presto.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Hi Katherine,
    Not sure about the artist, but I realised within a couple of minutes that it was central park (with the Statue of Liberty just visible...and the season is Winter of course......So I went on google images and searched under'Central Park in Winter, paintings of' and came up with an American artist Colin Campbell Cooper (1856-1937...who has produced similar looking work....Couldn't find the actual work, so this is just a possible author of this work...an educated guess this time....Interesting...

    ReplyDelete

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