Mythological clay - Hercules, terracotta, by John Michael Rysbrack, 1745

 

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John Michael Rysbrack (né Jan Michiel Rijsbrack; 24 June 1694, Antwerp - 8 January 1770, London), Flemish sculptor, who spent most of his career in England, where he was one of the foremost sculptors of monuments, architectural decorations, and portraits in the first half of the eighteenth century. The son of the landscape painter Pieter Rijsbraeck, both of his brothers were painters, as well. He was apprenticed to the Antwerp sculpture master Michiel van der Voort the Elder from 1706 to 1712, and became a member of the Guild of St. Luke in Antwerp in 1714-15; none of his works from this period have been preserved. Along with his older brother, he moved to England about 1720 where they subsequently built successful careers; their younger brother later joined them. In London, the sculptor quickly established himself as the leading figure in his field, a position he was to retain until the mid-1740s, remaining one of the top three sculptors in Britain until shortly before his death. He also operated an important workshop with many assistants, including other Flemish sculptors such as Gaspar van der Hagen and James Francis Verskovis; the workshop's output left an important imprint on the practice of sculpture in England. Rysbrack produced portraits and monuments of lively baroque composition, executing busts and funerary monuments of many of the most prominent men of his day, including the monument to Isaac Newton in Westminster Abbey - he created upwards of sixteen monuments for the Abbey - as well as a statue of Marlborough, and busts of Walpole, Bolingbroke, and Pope. He was responsible for the bronze equestrian statue of William III in Queen Square, Bristol, erected in 1733. He died in Vere Street, Westminster, at the age of seventy-five and is buried in St Marylebone Parish Church.

Portraits des dames - a selection of females, painted

 

Emilie Henriette Massmann, the fiancée of Frederik Wilhelm Caspar von Benzon, by Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg, 1820.

Susanna van Meckema, Dutch School, circa 1600-25.

The Kavos sisters, by Alexander Mikhailovich Lyubimov, 1906.

Joséphine Baker, by Jean-Gabriel Domergue, circa 1936.

Unknown sitter, Cuzco School, circa 1780s-90s.

Kopfstudie, by Franz Wiegele, 1919.

Dame einen Papagei fütternd, by Anna Rosina de Gasc, née Lisiewska, 1747.

Unknown sitter, Circle of Jacques-Henri Sablet, circa 1800.

Princess Louisa Maria Stuart, by François de Troy, 1705.

Elizabeth Jane Gardner, by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (her husband), 1879.

Unknown sitter, by Thomas Desangle, 1785.

 Ludwika Karolina Radziwiłł, Margravine of Brandenburg and Electress Countess Palatine of Neuberg, Polish School, 1681.

Miss Jane Woode, British School, circa 1750.

Le Turban Vert, by Tamara de Lempicka, 1929.

Isabelle Depestre, comtesse de Seneffe, by Antoine Vestier, circa 1785.

Hermine Gallia, by Gustav Klimt, 1903-04.

Gift ideas...?

 

Just a very discrete reminder that tomorrow is my birthday....

Also... A small preview of what my birthday morning will look like. In case there was any doubt.

Pampered Treatment, by Charles Edward Chambers, circa late 1930s.

In motion and still - six photographs by Max Dupain

 

Sunbaker, original version, 1937.

Harold Salvage sunbathing, variant to Sunbaker, 1937.

Portrait of a Boy in Sunlight, 1936.

Discus Thrower, 1937.

Discus Thrower III, 1937.

In 1937, while on the south coast of New South Wales, he photographed his English friend, Harold Salvage, lying on the sand at Culburra Beach. One of the images taken was entitled Sunbaker; the original negative to Dupain's preferred version was subsequently lost. As a result, the version that went on to become his most famous work was taken from a second negative, and was not printed until a retrospective of Dupain's work in 1975 at the Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney. A print of the photograph was purchased the following year by the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, and by the 1990s it was already considered one of the most iconic images of Australia.

Sunbaker, 1937.

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Maxwell Spencer Dupain AC OBE (22 April 1911 – 27 July 1992) was an Australian modernist photographer. Dupain received his first camera as a gift when he was thirteen, spurring his interest in photography. He later joined the Photographic Society of NSW, where he was taught by Justin Newlan. By 1934 he had opened his own studio in Bond Street, Sydney. In 1939, after the outbreak of World War II, Dupain married Olive Cotton - also a photographer - but they divorced soon after. During the war he served with the Royal Australian Air Force helping to create camouflage. The war affected his approach to photography, fostering a greater desire for documentary truth. He restarted his studio with this new perspective, hoping to abandon what he called the "cosmetic lie of fashion photography or advertising illustration". He also worked extensively for the University of New South Wales and made many trips to the interior and coast of northern Australia; apart from his war service he rarely left Australia, writing: "I find that my whole life, if it is going to be of any consequence in photography, has to be devoted to that place where I have been born, reared and worked, thought, philosophised and made pictures to the best of my ability. And that's all I need". At the end of the forties he married again, and he and his wife had a daughter and a son, Rex, who also became a photographer. The State Library of New South Wales now holds the entire photographic collection of Dupain's work. Along with his best known images, like Sunbaker, it also includes his commercial and architectural photography, studio portraits, and his record of the Ballets Russes.