Europe Art Treasures

Treasure: 👉 Fishing Village in Lofoten with Figures and a Steamship
Artist: 🇳🇴 Adelsteen Normann (1848–1918)

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Pietà - Michelangelo
1499
Rome - St Peter

Treasure: 👉 Skull of a Skeleton - 1886
Artist: 🇳🇱 Vincent Van Gogh
Where:📍 - Van Gogh Museum
Photo: 📸
Tag: 🔑

Skull of a Skeleton with Burning Cigarette (Dutch: Kop van een skelet met brandende sigaret) is an early work by Vincent van Gogh. The small and undated oil-on-canvas painting featuring a skeleton and cigarette is part of the permanent collection of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. It was probably painted in the winter of 1885–86 as a humorous comment on conservative academic practices – before painting live human models, the academic routine would have included studies of skeletons, to develop an understanding of human anatomy – an assumption based on the fact that Van Gogh was in Antwerp at that time, attending classes at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, classes he would later say were boring and taught him nothing.

Treasure: 👉 Parents Happiness - 1903
Artist: 🇫🇷 Jean-Eugène Buland
Where: 📍Private Collection
Photo: 📸
Tag: 🔑
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Treasure: 👉 The Mirror - 1913
Artist: 🇮🇪 William Orpen
Where:📍 - Tate
Photo: 📸
Tag: 🔑
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“The sitter in this portrait is Emily Scoble, a model from the Slade School of Art. Orpen was briefly engaged to her. The room is apparently an accurate portrayal of Orpen’s lodgings, but the shallow pictorial depth and decorative, or ‘aesthetic,’ arrangement of objects is based on Whistler’s famous portrait of his mother in profile. The circular mirror on the wall reflects the artist painting at his easel. This is a device which Orpen borrowed from a 15th-century painting by Jan van Eyck, The Arnolfini Portrait, which he would have seen on display at the National Gallery.
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Treasure: 👉 Northern Lights - 1901
Artist: 🇸🇪 Anna Boberg ​
Where:📍 - National Museum
Photo: 📸

“Northern Lights. Study from North Norway” is an oil painting on canvas (112x92 cm) made by Anna Boberg in 1901 and housed at the National museum of Stockholm. In the summer of 1901, Anna Boberg made her first visit to the Lofoten islands off the north-west coast of Norway, where she was deeply impressed by the alpine landscape, the northern lights and the midnight sun. She returned some thirty times, summer and winter, to paint in different light conditions. In a large number of paintings and sketches, often on paperboard, Boberg has portrayed the fishing villages, mountain ranges and atmospheric phenomena - such as this painting of northern lights. Her paintings from northern Norway were harshly criticised in Sweden but won all the more appreciation abroad.

Treasure: 👉 Learning by Heart – 1883
Artist: 🇬🇷 Nikolaos Gyzis
Where: 📍 Athens – National Gallery (Alexandros Soutzos Museum)
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Learning by Heart by Nikolaos Gyzis is a tender and powerful glimpse into childhood, discipline, and education in the 19th century. The painting captures a young boy absorbed in memorization, his posture tense yet sincere, reflecting the quiet pressure of learning and expectation. Gyzis, a leading figure of the Munich School, transforms an everyday moment into a universal experience, blending realism with emotional depth. The warm interior, the soft light, and the expressive gesture of the child speak of effort, vulnerability, and growth. This work reminds us that learning is not only intellectual but deeply human, shaped by patience, struggle, and hope. A masterpiece that turns simplicity into meaning and memory into art.

Treasure: 👉 Veiled Lady - 1860
Artist: 🇮🇹Raffaele Monti
Where:📍 - Institute of Art
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Treasure: 👉 Drinking Bacchus - 1623
Artist: 🇮🇹 Guido Reni
Where:📍 - ̈ldegalerie
Photo: 📸
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Drinking Bacchus is an oil painting on canvas (72x56 cm) by Guido Reni, painted around 1623 and housed at the Gemäldegalerie in Dresden, Germany. The painting depicts the child God Bacchus drinking copiously wine from a glass flask while resting on a small barrel. From the barrel a stream of wine comes out which refers to the stream of urine that the God himself casually expels. Bacchus wears the classic vine and grape vine crown that surrounds his head and it is shown with an absent expression, concentrated only on the wine. Bacchus was a divinity of the Roman religion, God of wine and harvest, as well as pleasure of the senses and fun.
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Treasure: 👉 Winter Landscape - 1875
Artist: 🇩🇪 Johann Gustav Lange
Where:📍Private Collection
Photo: 📸
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Soren Lexow-Hansen
1845-1919, Norway
Vala, The Norse Seeress 1883-1886
Cast in bronze 1890

Vala is a clairvoyant from Norse mythology. Returning from the grave, she foretells Ragnarok, when all will be destroyed prior to resurrection. Made early in his career, this sculpture is soon recognised as Lexow-Hansen’s masterpiece. The year he finishes it in plaster, it is purchased by the National Gallery.