The Virgin and Child Enthroned is a small oil-on-oak panel painting dated c. 1433, usually attributed to the Early Netherlandish artist Rogier van der Weyden, and closely related to his Madonna Standing. The panel is filled with Christian iconography, including representations of prophets, the Annunciation, Christ's infancy and resurrection, and Mary'sCoronation. It is generally accepted as the earliest extant work by van der Weyden, one of three works attributed to him of the Virgin and Child enclosed in a niche on an exterior wall of a Gothic church. The panel is housed in the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, in Madrid. It seems to be the left-hand wing of a dismantled diptych, perhaps with the Saint George and the Dragon panel now in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. As an early van der Weyden, it takes influence from Robert Campin and Jan van Eyck. Van der Weyden served his apprenticeship under Campin, and the older master's style is noticeable in the architecture of the niche and in the Virgin's face, hair and exposed breast. (Full article...)
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The Balcony is an 1868 oil painting by the French painter Édouard Manet. It depicts four figures. On the left is Berthe Morisot, who married Manet's brother Eugène in 1874. In the centre is the painter Jean Baptiste Antoine Guillemet. On the right is Fanny Claus, a violinist. The fourth figure, partially obscured in the interior's background, is possibly Leon Leenhoff, Manet's son. Exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1869, the painting was sold by Gustave Caillebotte in 1884. It is currently kept at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.
