Sensation, times five - The Five Senses, by Philippe Mercier, circa 1744-47

 

Depictions of the Five Senses - usually as a set of five separate pieces - have been a frequent subject for artists through the centuries, a chance to display their skill and imagination. Each painting in Mercier's set is composed as a "conversation piece"; all are now in the collection of the Yale Center for British Art. It appears that there are at least two other versions of this series, and it has been suggested that the present canvases may be the collaborative work of Mercier and his second wife, Dorothy, herself a painter.

The Sense of Hearing.

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The Sense of Taste.

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The Sense of Sight.

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The Sense of Smell.

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The Sense of Touch.

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Philippe Mercier (also spelled Philip Mercier; circa 1689-91, Berlin – 18 July 1760, London), German artist of French Huguenot descent active in England for most of his working life. Considered one of the earliest practitioners of an identifiable Rococo style, he is credited with influencing early eighteenth-century English artists. The son of a Huguenot tapestry-worker, he studied painting at the Akademie der Wissenschaften in Berlin, and then under Antoine Pesne, who had arrived in Berlin in 1710. Later, he travelled in Italy and France before arriving in London - "recommended by the Court at Hannover" - probably in 1716; he married in London three year later. He was appointed principal painter and librarian to the Prince and Princess of Wales at their independent establishment in Leicester Fields, and he painted various portraits of his patron's immediate and extended family, as well as taking commissions from the nobility and gentry. In 1736 he fell out of favor at Court and was replaced as principal painter to Frederick Prince of Wales by John Ellys. He then took rooms in Covent Garden before relocating to York in 1739. There he focused on "fancy" pictures, frequently concerned with domestic virtue, as well as taking on commissions for portraits. He remained in York for more than ten years before returning to London in 1751. The following year he traveled to Portugal at the request of several English merchants, but did not remain there long, however, before returning to London, where he died in 1760 at the age of about seventy.

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His daughter Charlotte was also an artist early in her life. But she turned to "a life of dissolution" and died in the St. James Workhouse two years after her father's death.

Blumen... mit ein paar Insekten - flower paintings by Barbara Regina Dietzsch

 

("Circle of.")

("Circle of.")

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Barbara Regina Dietzsch (22 September 1706, Free Imperial City of Nuremberg, Electorate of Bavaria, Holy Roman Empire – 1 May 1783, Free Imperial City of Nuremberg, Electorate of Bavaria, Holy Roman Empire), Bavarian painter and engraver known for her still-lifes. She specialized in watercolor and gouache paintings of plants - primarily flowers - and animals, and her works are typically identifiable by their plain dark brown backgrounds. Her works were frequently reproduced as engravings, most of which were created by the artist herself. Her works avidly collected in Germany, England, the Netherlands, and France. Members of her family, including her father, Johann Israel, brother Johann Christoph, and sister Margareta, were also artists, employed by the Nuremberg courts. The similarities in style and subject matter of works by Dietzsch and works by her family members have caused challenges in attribution. She was married to the painter Nikolaus Christopher Matthes. The couple resided in Hamburg, but Dietzsch eventually returned to Nuremberg sometime before her death at the age of seventy-six.