Sunday, December 11, 2011

At the Lapin Agile - Pablo Picasso

Price in US $ - 40.7 million





















At the turn of the twentieth century the Lapin Agile, a Montmartre cabaret in France, was a favorite spot for struggling artists and writers, including Picasso, Modigliani, Apollinaire, and Utrillo.

Pablo Picasso's 1905 oil painting "At the Lapin Agile" helped to make this cabaret world famous.

Picasso's composition was of posterlike simplicity. He aligned glasses and figures—hatted and shown from full-face to profile view—along severe diagonals, ending with a seated guitarist, Frédé, the café's owner.

Steve Martin wrote a play 'Picasso at the Lapin Agile' based on this painting.



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Friday, December 9, 2011

The Gross Clinic - Thomas Eakins

Price in US $ - 68 million























The Gross Clinic
is an oil on canvas painting by American artist Thomas Eakins. Included among the group is a self-portrait of Eakins, who is seated to the right of the tunnel railing, sketching or writing.

The painting is shocking for both its bold presentation and the matter-of-fact goriness of the procedure. Adding to the drama is the lone woman in the painting seen in the middle ground, possibly the patient's mother, cringing in distress. Her dramatic figure functions as a strong contrast to the calm, professional demeanor of the men who surround the patient. This bloody and very blunt depiction of surgery was shocking at the time it was first exhibited.

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Diana and Actaeon - Titian

Price in US $ - 70.6 million





















The story of how Actaeon was turned into a stag for glimpsing the naked goddess Diana has inspired artists through the centuries. Diana and Actaeon is considered to be one of the greatest works by the Italian Renaissance master Titian.

Titian was one of the most versatile of Italian painters, equally adept with portraits, landscape backgrounds, and mythological and religious subjects.