Birmingham Museum of Art favorites, pt 1

Looking Down Yosemite Valley, Albert Bierstadt, 1865; this work was chosen by the National Endowment for the Humanities as 1 of 40 American masterpieces that best depict the people, places, and events that have shaped America and tell its story

View of the Grand Canal, Canaletto, late 1720s; Canaletto created 100+ paintings of the Grand Canal alone since they were highly sought after by wealthy 18th century travelers often taking lengthy Grand Tours of Europe

Bowl, Chinese Ming Dynasty, ca. 1625; the Museum's collection of Asian art is considered the finest and most comprehensive in the SE, and its collection of Vietnamese ceramics also one of the finest in the US

Still Life with Male Figure, Juriaen van Streek, ca. 1680; depictions of Blacks from this period are rare and no info exists as to who this man is; the Dutch were involved in the slave trade but this man is dressed in fine clothes, so who is he?

Tulip Vase, Adriaen Kocks (Delft), ca. 1693; tulips came to the Netherlands from Turkey and, once it was determined they could withstand the harsh weather, became a status symbol and thus a coveted luxury item

English Chest, ca. 1640; made from oak, walnut, rosewood and ebonized wood with bone and mother-of-pearl inlay, I wonder who ordered this beautiful piece and where its travelled over the last 400 years

Fruit Still Life, Severin Roesen, ca. 1865; a German immigrant, Roesen started as a porcelain painter where he learned to apply the paint thinly; among his largely German patrons in PA, his bright compositions reflected their mid-century optimism

A Tender Chord, Francis Davis Millet, ca. 1888; Millet was close friends with Augustus Saint-Gaudens and Mark Twain, both of whom attended his wedding in Paris (Twain was Millet's best man); Millet was a passenger on the Titanic and died when it sank

Portrait of Lady Helen Vincent, Viscountess d’Abernon, John Singer Sargent, 1904; Sargent elongates Lady Helen’s limbs, underscoring her gracefulness, while the black dress emphasizes her milk-white skin, a sign of her nobility

The Village of Eragny, Camille Pissarro, 1885; influenced early by Corot, then Courbet, Pissarro became a pioneer of the Impressionist Movement; in the 1870s, he and Monet worked together closely and drew inspiration from each other

Memories of the Coast of France, George Copeland Ault, 1944; this surreal painting is a reaction to the German occupation of the beaches of Ault's childhood; he also fills the eerie canvas with a sense of isolation and sadness

Vase, Rene Lalique, ca. 1925; from a population of 340,887 in 1960, Birmingham has seen a steady decline to only 200,733 in 2020 as a result of white flight with the surrounding suburbs, outside the city limits, experiencing tremendous growth

Moonlight in Virginia, George Inness, 1884; while this work emphasizes unity between land and people, it also reflects the somber mood of a country trying to heal from the destruction of the Civil War

Pair of Vases, Henry Hollins, Minton, 1882; painted in a style copied directly from Limoges enamals of the 16th century, these vases resulted from new consumer tastes based on styles seen at the earliest World's Fairs

Reclining Nude, Fernando Botero, 1984; having recently visited Botero's homeland of Colombia as well as his art museum, I had to include this as the only representative of the Museum's sculpture garden

Krater Vase with Two Fitments, Wedgwood, ca. 1820; luster decoration, a thin film of metal on the surface of the glaze, began at Wedgwood in 1805; gold was used for the pink, platinum produced the gray and iron gave the color orange

Cabinet, Japanese (Meiji Period), ca. 1890; a tour-de-force of Japanese craftsmanship, these large, complex cabinets were much sought after among high society in Europe and the US to display Asian collectables