#19th Century

Women Artists

Olga Boznańska: The Uneasy Story of a Polish Painter

Olga Boznańska was one of the most famous Polish female painters. Her multiple portraits of fragile women and children are permeated with notes of...

Magda Michalska, Aniela Rybak-Vaganay 25 March 2025

Women Artists

The Divine Sarah: Sarah Bernhardt, The First Artist Superstar

While we are all familiar with celebrity culture and can recognize all of the Kardashians by their silhouettes, the idea of ‘celebrity’ is not a...

Wendy Gray 21 March 2025

Kiyohara Tama:Japanese Landscape, c. 1880, Gallery of Modern Art, Palermo, Italy. Women Artists

Kiyohara Tama or Eleonora Ragusa: An Amazing Story About a Japanese Female Painter in Sicily

When tracing Japanese art stories in Europe, we found out about this exquisite female painter. Kiyohara Tama or Otama (later known as Eleonora...

Magda Michalska 20 March 2025

Susie M. Barstow, Mountain Lake in Autumn, 1873, private collection via Thomas Cole National Historic Site Review

Redefining the Hudson River School: Susie Barstow’s First-Ever Biography

During her lifetime, the American landscape artist Susie Barstow (1836-1923) was nationally renowned and commercially successful. So why don’t...

Emily Snow 19 March 2025

Women Artists

12 Female Artists of the Hudson River School

The Hudson River School was a movement in American landscape painting being the first independent artistic tradition in the country. It was very...

Alexandra Kiely 19 March 2025

Post-Impressionism

Jo van Gogh-Bonger: The Woman Who Made Vincent van Gogh

Everyone knows Van Gogh’s Starry Night, or his Sunflowers or that he cut off his ear. The name Vincent van Gogh is now a household name,...

Ledys Chemin 17 March 2025

Portrait of Madeleine. Marie-Guillemine Benoist, Portrait of Madeleine, 1800, Musée du Louvre, Paris, France. Detail. Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: Portrait of Madeleine by Marie-Guillemine Benoist

What is the message behind Marie-Guillemine Benoist’s Portrait of Madeleine? The history and tradition behind this 1800 painting might explain...

Jimena Escoto 16 March 2025

Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: Little Girl in a Blue Armchair by Mary Cassatt

Mary Stevenson Cassatt was an American painter and printmaker. She lived much of her adult life in France, where she became friends with Edgar Degas...

Zuzanna Stańska 16 March 2025

Jane Morris Love Story

Jane Morris: A Pre-Raphaelite Artist and Muse

Jane Morris (1839-1914) was an English embroiderer and artists’ model who embodied the Pre-Raphaelite ideal of beauty. She was a model and muse to...

Marija Canjuga 12 March 2025

Artist Stories

Camille Claudel and Auguste Rodin: It’s Complicated

There is a common saying that behind every great man, there is a great woman. It was no exception for the legendary sculptor, generally considered...

Zuzanna Stańska 12 March 2025

Academic Art

Constructing Racism in Western Art – Hans Makart and the Case of Cleopatra

When Netflix cast Black actress Adele James as Cleopatra in a docu-series on the life of the famous Egyptian queen, the world went viral in a heated...

Kero Fichter 11 March 2025

Alexandre Cabanel, Cleopatra, 1887, Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp, Belgium. Detail. Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: Cleopatra by Alexandre Cabanel

Queen Cleopatra is a popular subject today – as she was in the late 19th century. Alexandre Cabanel’s Cleopatra explores a single moment of her...

James W Singer 11 March 2025