This set of eight large watercolors of World War I Airplanes was painted by Riccardo Caviglioli (1895 -1975), an Italian aviator and painter born in Milan. Caviglioli received multiple decorations during World War I, and during his lifetime worked as an aeronautical writer, designer and illustrator for advertising campaigns. Additionally, he wrote a book entitled Austrian-Hungary Aviation on the Italian Front between 1915 and 1918 published in 1930.
Caviglioli’s aviation watercolors were first presented at the Torino Exposition in 1928. His designs represent true historic reconstructions of a glorious past, and through his artistic style he was able to depict the impression of flight, glides, turns and takeoffs. Read more... (252 words, 8 images, estimated 1:00 mins reading time)
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
The production of painted tiles in Valencia has continued in one form or another since the Middle Ages. The first known Valencian factory devoted solely to tilemaking opened in 1568. Full polychrome designs introduced by Castille artisans had revolutionized the Spanish tilemaking industry and inspired new subject matter and more elaborate compositions. Increased demand led several Valencian craftsmen to open tile factories, which at first were small, cramped workshops with a single kiln and a limited yield. However, by the middle of the eighteenth-century, at the height of the Spanish Rococo period, the city’s tile factories had become the foremost in Spain, and were receiving commissions ranging from kitchen panels in the homes of the wealthy nobility to interior decorations in the Royal Palace in Madrid. Read more... (573 words, 3 images, estimated 2:18 mins reading time)
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
This painting of unusually large scale (at just over 14 feet long) depicts the entrance front of the great house of Denham Place, Buckinghamshire and has been attributed to the artist Peter Hartover. The painting, which can be dated on the grounds of stylistic comparison with other of Hartover’s works to around 1675, records the appearance of Denham Place after the addition of a vast façade by Sir William Bowyer (1612-79) in the 1650s and before its rebuilding by Sir Roger Hill from 1688.
- Oil painting depicting the front facade of Denham Place, Buckinghamshire attributed to Peter Hartover. Carlton Hobbs LLC.
Read more... (413 words, 3 images, estimated 1:39 mins reading time)
You might remember our Halloween blog, “Trick or Treat,” in which we focused on a number of artworks that feature skeletons. The last work we mentioned was full of quotes and symbolism, and we’re back to tell you a bit more about this curious picture.
This engraving is titled Life and Death Contrasted, or, An Essay on Woman. It belongs to the genre of symbolic still life painting known as Vanitas (Latin for “vanity”) intended to remind us of our own mortality and the transience of earthly possessions and vices. Like Memento Mori painting (from the Latin “Remember you will die”), the most popular symbols found in these works are skeletons or skulls, but they may also include symbols of vanity (such as mirrors and musical instruments), expressing the emptiness and worthless nature of worldly goods. Read more... (427 words, 4 images, estimated 1:42 mins reading time)
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Josiah Wedgwood (1730-1795) is perhaps the most distinguished English potter, whose work spread throughout Europe and to the United States and Canada. Wedgwood was the youngest son in a family of potters of Burslem, Staffordshire. By 1749 he completed his apprenticeship with the family pottery works and went on to form partnerships with John Harrison and Thomas Alders at Cliff Bank, Stoke, between 1752 to 1754, and with Thomas Whieldon, another notable Staffordshire potter, from 1754-1759. In 1759, Wedgwood terminated this partnership in order to found his own pottery works, making this year the 250th anniversary of the celebrated factory! Read more... (548 words, 4 images, estimated 2:12 mins reading time)
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
We recently read a post on the Indianapolis Museum of Art’s blog about the depiction of fruit in painting. This inspired us to consider all of the pieces of furniture in our building that incorporate fruits and vegetables. In anticipation of the Thanksgiving holiday, we’ve selected three delectable pieces from the Carlton Hobbs collection that feature these motifs to whet your decorative arts appetites! Read more... (518 words, 3 images, estimated 2:04 mins reading time)
Also filed in Furniture
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Tagged bracket, carved, Cornucopia, food, fruit, harvest, mirror, pomegranate, symbols, table, vegetables, wheat
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Halloween originated with the Celts some 2,000 years ago as a celebration of their new year on November 1st. On the night of October 31st , they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed the ghosts of the dead returned to the land of the living. One of the quintessential symbols of the holiday is the skeleton and this Halloween, we’ve pulled four skeletons out of the Carlton Hobbs closet: Read more... (624 words, 4 images, estimated 2:30 mins reading time)
Friday, September 18, 2009
One of our pieces here at Carlton Hobbs is an attractive model of a French navy submarine, the Surcouf, bearing the maker’s name ‘P. Jouffroy’ and dated 1993. We decided to do some research into the vessel and uncovered a tale of treachery, diplomacy, violence and gold smuggling on the high seas during World War II, featuring one of the most unusual warships ever built. Read more... (534 words, 3 images, estimated 2:08 mins reading time)
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Figure 1: 19th century French dueling target. Carlton Hobbs LLC.
This very rare full-length dueling target, probably French from around 1830, harks back to the golden age of formalized dueling in Europe and America which came to an end in the middle of the 19th Century (figure 1).
Most historians date the origins of the duel to 501 A.D., when Gundelbald, King of Burgundy, legally established the ‘trial by combat’ or ‘judicial duel,’ where it was reasoned that God would favor the cause of the just. This evolved into duels of chivalry and then of honor, which were practiced until they fell out of fashion in the 19th century. Read more... (512 words, 2 images, estimated 2:03 mins reading time)
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Figure 1
September has arrived and school is in session! What better way to mark the beginning of the academic year than with a little lesson on Arithmetic, one of the seven Liberal Arts.
The seven Liberal Arts— Grammar, Rhetoric, Logic, Geometry, Arithmetic, Music, and Astronomy— were introduced in classical antiquity as the fields of study appropriate for a freeman’s education. From the Middle Ages, the Liberal Arts constituted the curriculum at Western universities, their focus on intellectual discourse distinguishing them from the practical arts of craftsmen and laborers. Artistic depictions of the Liberal Arts were based on an allegory by the fifth-century writer Martianus Capella called On the Seven Disciplines or Satyricon, in which the seven Arts were personified as maids serving the bride Philology upon her marriage to Mercury. Read more... (411 words, 4 images, estimated 1:39 mins reading time)
