© Ashmolean Museum
© Ashmolean Museum
Twenty Six Gold Boxes
Unknown Artist
- Art Funded
- 1948
- Presented by
- Children of Mr & Mrs Henry van der Bergh through The Art Fund
A collection of gold-mounted snuff and other boxes, mainly French.
© Ashmolean Museum
© Ashmolean Museum
Nominally inspired by Lucretius' De rerum natura, Piero di Cosimo's The Forest Fire takes its scientific subject and embellishes it with fantastical creatures from the artist's imagination: Bulls, bears, lions and deer-like creatures with human faces all flee wearily from a fire.
Rubens' portrait of Thomas Howard, 2nd Earl of Arundel dates from about 1629. The Earl was a great collector, and Rubens had painted the earl's wife a few years earlier on a visit to Antwerp. This drawing in pen and ink with a chalk base is unusually informal, reflecting perhaps the comfortable relationship between artist and patron.
