The scabbard as wardrobe - discretions of the "antique"

In contemporary and later depictions, ancient Greek warriors were most frequently portrayed as going into battle nearly or entirely nude. Which seems, for several reasons, rather... awkward? In later, slightly more prudish eras, all that male nudity could be problematic for artists whose intention was to depict one or more of the celebrated ancient heroes. One device employed to avoid so much full-frontal "military splendor" can often be found in French paintings of the Neoclassical period: a warrior's scabbard proved convenient for obscuring his most masculine attributes. This worked well enough while the subject - Achilles, Castor and Pollux, Leonidas, etc. - struck a beautifully static "antique" pose, but we might imagine that any sort of real-life movement - say, walking? - would be rather uncomfortable thus encumbered.

Achille donne à Nestor le prix de la sagesse, by Joseph-Désiré Court, 1820.

Hélène délivrée par Castor et Pollux, by Jean-Bruno Gassies, 1817.

Léonidas aux Thermopyles, by Jacques-Louis David, 1814.

Guerrier avec épée tirée, by Jean-Eugène-Charles Alberti, 1808.

Briséis pleurant Patrocle, by Léon Cogniet, 1815.

Hélène délivrée par Castor et Pollux, by Amable-Paul Coutan, circa 1820s.

Thésée vainqueur du Minotaure, by François-Joseph Heim, 1807.

Egisthe croyant découvrir le corps d'Oreste mort, découvre celui de Clytemnestre, by Auguste-Hyacinthe Debay, 1823.

Soldat romain au repos, académie, by François-Xavier Fabre, 1788. In this case the covering is the attached sword belt, the baldric.

Antigone donnant la sépulture à Polynice, by Sébastien Norblin, 1825. Someone's arm also proves a useful aid to modesty.

Les Sabines / L'Intervention des Sabines / Les Sabines arrêtant le combat entre les Romains et les Sabins, by Jacques-Louis David, 1799.

Sober elegance - eight portraits by Veronese

Lavinia Vecellio, daughter of the painter Titian, circa 1560.

The architect Vincenzo Scamozzi, circa 1585.

Portrait of a Woman, circa 1560.

Portrait of a Man, circa 1560.

Countess Livia da Porto née Thiene with her daughter Deidamia, 1552.

Count Iseppo da Porto - husband of the above - with his son Adriano, 1551-52.

Portrait of a Woman "Bella Nani", circa 1557.

Portrait of a Man, circa 1576-78.

Her "Forgotten Man" - Joan Blondell in the finale to Gold Diggers of 1933

The best-known of the Gold Diggers series takes a radically serious turn in the final musical number which - in most prints - concludes the film, Busby Berkeley's famous "Remember My Forgotten Man". One of the film's stars, the delightful Joan Blondell, recites the song lyrics in the first part, while the featured vocalist Etta Moten subsequently takes up the song and actually sings it; Moten also reportedly dubbed Blondell's singing voice during the finale of the song.

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On the set.

The Orlov brothers - two equestrian portraits by Vigilius Eriksen, circa 1766

Count Grigori Grigorievich Orlov. The two paintings measure more than thirteen by eleven and a half feet.

These portraits by the Danish painter Vigilius Eriksen are of the two most celebrated of the five Orlov brothers. Count Grigori Grigorievich Orlov (1734–1783), pictured above in Roman costume, was a lover of the Empress Catherine the Great and one of her closest advisors; he fathered her illegitimate son, Alexei, born the same year as the coup d'état which deposed Catherine's husband and secured her place as sole ruler of Russia. Virtually her co-ruler for some years, he was supplanted by Grigori Potemkin in 1774.

Count Alexei Grigorievich Orlov.

Count Alexei Grigorievich Orlov (1737–1808), depicted in Turkish dress, was one of Catherine’s most important military and diplomatic leaders. The ablest of the Orlov brothers, he was integral to Catherine's plot to take power in 1762; some sources claim he participated in the resulting death of Peter III, that he conveyed the Emperor to Ropsha Palace and even participated in his murder, though the circumstances of Peter's death are much disputed.

In 1766, Catherine the Great ordered the first Russian "carousel," an exhibition of horseback riding, swordsmanship, and shooting then popular in all the great courts of Europe. While the event was repeated in subsequent years, no later celebration inspired as much artistic and literary creativity as the first; there are references to the event in the works of Casanova, Voltaire, and others, as well as numerous paintings and other works of art. These large equestrian portraits commemorate the prominent participation of the Orlov brothers, still the most influential figures at court. Eriksen was Catherine's court painter in the early years of her reign and is responsible for many of the best known images of the Empress.

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The portraits hung in the Winter Palace until the death of the Empress in 1796. Paul I began his reign by clearing away any reference to his mother's long succession of lovers, and these paintings were shut up in warehouses for many years. Sent to the Court Stable Chancellery in 1827, during the reign of Nicholas I, they found their way to the Gatchina Palace six years later. During World War II, in advance of the Nazi occupation, there was a mass evacuation of the art treasures resident in the suburban palace-museums outside of St. Petersburg; it is likely these were part of that exodus. After the war, they were returned to the repository of art and furnishings held at the Pavlovsk Palace Museum and, in 1958, handed off to the Hermitage and stored in the Central Warehouse of Museum Holdings.

The two paintings in the early stages of restoration.

These paintings were stored in rolls for decades. This type of storage - where the painting is taken from the frame and then detached from its stretcher - is generally used as only a temporary, emergency measure, and is the result of a number of reasons, among which is the need to transport overly large paintings, or where there is the lack of space or the proper conditions for storing such works of art in any other manner. One way or another, these canvases had been languishing in this state probably since World War II. Previously only known from black and white reproductions - to the public and museum curators alike - they were finally unrolled less than a decade ago and have now been restored.