Pictures at an Exhibition - Female Nude Quiz

Answer: Eve

Cranach the Elder (1472-1553) was a German painter. He left us over thirty portraits of Eve, over thirty portraits of Cleopatra and over thirty nude portraits of a Roman girl who has committed suicide.
The biblical nude woman holding an apple is of course Eve, the first female we meet in the Bible. Most of Cranach's paintings of Eve portray her just before she bites in the apple.
By the way, artists have conventionally used the apple as the forbidden fruit. However, the Bible states that Adam and Eve were allowed to eat all fruits, except those of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. As far as my knowledge stretches, this Tree did produce fruits that can't be compared to any fruit known in our days.

Answer: Because the Bible tells us so

Did you think goats had something to do with the beautiful Susannah? Obviously, this is not the case.
I have mentioned in the question that almost all paintings of Susanna depict only two elders. This excludes the lack of room: if one had to paint more old people, one had only to make a larger painting... Besides, in the painting by Tintoretto you have to carefully look for the second old "Peeping Tom", for he is quite well concealed.
The attack on two fronts can only be found in the painting by Alessandro Allori (*warning*: this painting is "children not allowed"!).
The book of Daniel, chapter 13 tells us the full story of Susanna. It states literally that two elders, nominated as judges, had a habit of spying on Susanna. As she takes a bath on a hot day, the elders try to obtain sexual favours of her. She refuses and is brought before justice. When a young boy called Daniel (probably the prophet) interrogates these two elders separately, they produce a different story. Daniel concludes thus that the elders lie and that Susanna is innocent. The end of the story is that the two elders are being put to death.

Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-1652) is one of the few female artists that reached the "Hall of Fame" before the Nineteenth Century. She is best known for her painting "Judith Kills Holofernes".
Tintoretto (born Iacopo Comin) lived from 1518 until 1594. In his painting of Susanna, one of the elders is hidden near the bottom left of the painting. The other one is peeping at the end of the hedge surrounding the garden. Tintoretto left us over one hundred and fifty paintings.
Alessandro Allori (1535-1607) was a Florentine painter. His masterpieces include "Cleopatra's Banquet".

Answer: David

Saul was the first king of Israel, followed by David and by Solomon. Abimelech was not a King of Israel at all, but a quite common name for a Philistine king.
There is very little information on the love interests of Saul.
Solomon had hundreds of wives and concubines (at the same time), according to legend. However, most of them remain anonymous.
David had at least eight wives one after the other. Best known of these wives are his third wife Abigail and his eighth wife Bathsheba.

Hans Memling (1433-1494) was born in Seligenstadt, Germany, but is generally considered to be a Flemish painter. He worked almost all of his life in Bruges. Memling will always be associated to the "St. Ursula Shrine": a wooden coffin of 87 cm by 33 cm and 91 cm high (in inches: 34 by 13, and 35 high).

Other people who portrayed Bathsheba were the Dutch painter Rembrandt (1606-1669), the Antwerp painter Rubens (1577-1640), the German painter Adam Elsheimer (1578-1610) and the Italian painters Sebastiano Ricci (1659-1734) and Cecchino Salviati (1510-1563).

Answer: Pygmalion

Which of these Greeks was a mythical sculptor?
Let's start with Pythagoras (575 BCE - about 500 BCE). He was no sculptor, neither in real life nor in mythology. Pythagoras was a philosopher and mathematician, and his theorem on the sides of a right angle triangle still bothers many high school kids.
Praxiteles was a real sculptor. He lived about 450 BCE. Copies of his statues of the "Cnidian Aphrodite" (found near the isle of Cnidos) and of a "Hermes with Infant Dionysus" still exist.
Phidias was another real sculptor, probably the best Greek sculptor of all times. He made a statue of "Athena Parthenos" (height: 12 m) and the statue of Zeus at Olympia (height: 12,5 m, in wood all covered with gold and ivory).
The mythical sculptor here was Pygmalion. According to legend, he made the perfect female nude. When he fell in love with his statue, the Greek goddess of love Aphrodite inspired the statue with life, so Pygmalion could marry his creation. And they lived long and happily ever after.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) named a novel after the mythical Pygmalion, and this novel was made into a musical and a movie under the title "My Fair Lady". However, the story of "My Fair Lady" does not concern an actual sculptor, but a language teacher.

Falconet (1716-1791) was a French sculptor. His masterpiece is the statue of Czar Peter the Great in St.-Petersburg.

Galatea was frequently portrayed in painting, but Falconet's statue is the only sculpture of Galatea I know. Here are some painters who named a picture after Galatea: Rafael (1483-1520), Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665), Rembrandt (1606-1669), Charles Natoire (1700-1777) and Salvador Dali (1904-1989).

Answer: Theodore Chasseriau

Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) was a Belgian painter. His painting "Perseus Frees Andromeda" is quite dramatic, as most of his paintings are.
Pierre Puget (1620-1694) was a French sculptor, pupil of Bernini's. His statue "Perseus and Andromeda" shows us the nude Andromeda, resting in Perseus' arms, while an angel unties her feet.
Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574) was an Italian painter and architect, of whom his portrait of Lorenzo de Medici is frequently cited as his masterpiece. However, most art historians remember him for his biography of Renaissance Artists "Le vite de piu eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori" ("The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects").
The French painter we're looking for is Théodore Chassériau (1819 -1856). He started his brief career with some scenes from Roman myth (for example "Venus Anadyomene" and "Diana Surprised by Actaeon") and biblical scenes ("Susanna and the Elders", "The Descent from the Cross") and ended up with oriental themes ("Arab Chiefs Visiting Their Vassals", "Jewish Women on a Balcony"). By the way, I've left out the accents in the answer to avoid curious effects that the server might encounter sometimes when playing in flash quiz mode.

Answer: She collects the shower of gold in the lap of her robe

Titian (1488-1576) refers here to the seduction of Danae by Zeus, who appears to her in the form of a shower of gold. To clarify the situation, Titian chose to represent the shower by means of gold coins, a nuance that the original myth doesn't take into account.
The servant fetching a robe (or some other clothing) is a detail of Titian's other famous female nude, "The Venus of Urbino". Here we see in the background one servant searching a cupboard, and another servant carrying a robe over her left shoulder.
The cat is not present in one of Titian's female nudes, but in Edouard Manet's "Olympia" - a painting that was inspired by Titian's "Venus of Urbino". However, in Manet's painting the black cat stands firmly at Olympia's feet, and no one dares to chase it away.
There are many paintings of nude women combing their hair. However, in most instances the girl represented in the nude is Venus, and in any case she combs her own hair, and doesn't allow a servant to do so.
Quite surprisingly, Danae's servant collects the shower of gold in the lap of her robe. As this shower of gold is the disguise of Zeus impregnating Danae, one would expect that soon after this incident Danae's servant would bear child. The real myth states that Danae gave birth to Perseus, who would later kill his grandfather (by accident).
By the way, there are also paintings of Danae by Correggio (1489-1534), Rembrandt (1606-1669) and Gustav Klimt (1862-1918).

Answer: Copper

Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510) was an Italian painter. His best known masterpieces are "Primavera" ("Spring", 1478) and "The Birth of Venus" (1485).
When I visited the Uffizi in Firenze, I hoped to discover the colour of Venus' eyes. (Note for the male quizzers: as most females are best pleased with their eyes, Venus' eyes did interest me more than other parts of her anatomy.) However, the painting is placed too high to study in detail Venus' eyes. Her eyes might be green, but I'm not sure.
Venus is the goddess of love, beauty and youth. As such, she is always portrayed as a young woman. Silver hair (greyish or whitish) wouldn't make any sense.
The two gemstones I've mentioned are purple (amethyst) or green (emerald) respectively. Neither of these two colours are natural hair colours. Dying one's hair was already practised in ancient and medieval cultures, but dying with unnatural colours only became common practice in the Punk Era (1970s and later).
The only plausible colour that remains is the colour of copper: a hue of reddish yellow, nowadays known (in hair colour) as "Venetian blonde".
For those of you who know the full story of Venus' birth, this colour is quite evident. Venus is the Roman equivalent of the Greek goddess Aphrodite, and almost all artworks named after Venus are based upon Greek myth. According to Greek myth, Aphrodite was born out of the foam of the sea near Paphos, Cyprus. In ancient times the island of Cyprus was one of the most prominent production sites of copper - the metal was even named after the island (or vice versa, this is still to be debated).
Venus has given her name and image to numerous works of art. I will only refer to some of the Venuses I find most interesting: "Venus Frigida" ("The Cold Venus") by Rubens (1577-1640), where a nude woman is squatted in the woods; "Venus of Urbino" by Titian - a nude woman reclining on a divan, with a little dog at her feet; "The Tinted Venus" - a statue by John Gibson (1790-1866); and "Venus and Amor" by Hans Holbein the Younger (1497-1543), one of the few paintings in which Venus is fully dressed.

Answer: Sabine

Giambologna (1529-1608) was a sculptor born in the city of Douai, at that time part of the County of Flanders. (Nowadays Douai is situated in France, in the "Département du Nord").
He worked in Italy, first in Rome and later in Firenze.
Giambologna's statue I refer to is "The Rape of the Sabine Women", and can be admired in the Piazza della Signoria in Firenze. In this square, you can also find many other important Florentine statues (mostly nudes).
Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) made a painting of a similar event. However, his painting is not named after the tribe to which the victims belong, but is entitled "The Rape of the Daughters of Leucippus". In Rubens' painting of "The Rape of the Sabine Women", the women are fully dressed - which doesn't allow this picture in the present room of my imaginary exhibition.
Other artists inspired by "The Rape of the Sabine Women" include Pietro da Cortona (1596-1669) and Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825).

Answer: Melpomene

Rubens (1577-1640) was a prolific Belgian painter. He is famous for his dramatic scenes.
The painting of "The Three Graces" shows us three nude women, who might be dancing around.
According to Greek myth, the three Graces are Aglaea ("The Shining"), Euphrosyne ("Joy") and Thalia ("The Florishing"). Melpomene is not one of the Graces, but one of the nine muses: the one of the tragedy.
As in many paintings by Rubens, the nude women are a bit overweight. Some sources state that one of them is troubled by cellulite.
Other artists that have portrayed the three Graces are (just to mention the most famous of them) Rafael (1483-1520), Tintoretto (1518-1594) and Antonio Canova (1757-1822).

Answer: A silver diadem in the shape of a crescent moon

Did you pick the wristwatch? This was not yet invented in 1742.
Diana, goddess of the hunt, is quite naturally associated with a bow and arrows. But what would be the use of this weapon when one takes a bath? And anyway, I asked what she was wearing. I don't quite see how one would be able to *wear* arrows.
The embroidered towel is also something I've made up. Most paintings of Diana were made during a time the vast majority of the population could not read or write, so an embroidered towel wouldn't help them in identifying a person.
Diana was not only the goddess of the hunt, she also patronized the moon. That's why François Boucher painted her with a diadem in the form of a crescent moon (and nothing else, I'm afraid to add).
Although Diana was a chaste goddess, many artworks represent her in the nude. See for example the paintings by Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472-1553), Théodore Chassériau (1819-1856) and François Clouet (1510-1572). Let's hope the pictures and statues of a nude Diana are not as vindictive as the mythical goddess. When Actaeon surprised Diana leaving her bath (and thus saw her naked), she transformed him into a stag. His own dogs tore him apart. Male quizzers, be careful not to look up too many pictures of the nude Diana!

Answer: Lucretia

The Laura I refer to is the beloved of the Italian poet Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374). Antonio Canova (1757-1822) made a statue of her, and Andrea del Sarto (1486-1530) and Giorgione (1477-1510) have painted her. None of these artworks represents her in the nude.
Daphne was a nymph chased by Apollo. To escape from his advances, she was transformed into a laurel tree. This scene was sculpted by Bernini (1598-1680) and painted by Poussin (1594-1665) and Tiepolo (1696-1770), to mention only the most notorious.
Magdalene (or Mary Magdalene) is the name of a biblical person. She is often depicted as a penitent prostitute. A famous statue of her dressed in rags was made by Donatello (1386-1466).
According to Roman myth, Lucretia was raped by the Roman crown prince. Not feeling up to the possibility she would be carrying his child, she chose to kill herself by stabbing a knife into her heart. Her friends organised a vendetta which led to the fall of the last Roman king, Tarquin the Superior.
Titian (1490-1576) was another artist who depicted Lucretia.

Answer: An asp bit her

Let's start with the woman shot by Gavrile Princip. This happened in 1914 in Sarajevo: the Serbian conspirator Princip shot the Austrian crown prince Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie.
The French Queen Marie-Antoinette was guillotined in 1793, at the age of 38. This was also something that happened quite a while after the career of Guido Reni (1575-1642). Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825) made a notorious drawing of this Queen of France waiting for her execution.
The legendary Queen Dido of Carthage ascended a pyre and lit it when Aeneas left her. Pierre-Narcisse Guérin (1774-1833) and Francesco Solimena (1657-1743) have made a painting of the moment when Dido fell in love with Aeneas.
Cleopatra committed suicide by voluntarily letting an asp bite her. The painting by Reni is rather inaccurate in so far it concerns the asp: Reni painted a tiny, probably harmless snake.
Guido Reni (1575-1642) was an Italian painter.

Answer: A skeleton

"The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side" has nothing to do with the painting by Antoine Wiertz. It is the title of a novel by Agatha Christie (1890-1976).
The picture that represents someone older than the actual person has also a literary origin. I refer here to Oscar Wilde's novel "The Picture of Dorian Gray", where the title characters remains young and beautiful while his painting ages.
The broken pendulum is a false lead: I have invented this theme myself.
Wiertz (1806-1867) shows Rosine in front of a (probably female) skeleton. The painting wears an alternative title: "Two Young Girls".
Antoine Wiertz was a Belgian painter. Other works of his include "Madame Laetitia Bonaparte at her Death Bed", "Patrocles" and "Christ at the Tomb".
The motif of a skeleton to symbolise mortality, was also used by Albrecht Durer (1471-1528) in his woodcut "Death and the Landskneght". Hans Holbein the Younger (1497-1543) used a skull in his painting "The Ambassadors".

Answer: The Origin of the World

"The Origin of Species" is part of the well known title of a book by Charles Darwin. Its full title is "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life". As such, it bears no link to art.

"The Gates of Paradise" is the collective name for the plates made by Lorenzo Ghiberti (1378-1445) for the doors of the Baptistery in Firenze, Italy. Nowadays a copy of these tableaux decorates the east door of the Baptistery, while the original plates are conserved in the museum "Opera del Duomo". These bronze plates (gilded, of course) represent ten scenes from the Old Testament: for example "The Sacrifice of Isaac", "Noah and the Flood", "Jacob and Esau", "The Creation of Adam and Eve".

"Pandora's Box" is the title of a painting by the Belgian surrealist painter René Magritte (1898-1967). It refers to the Greek myth about Pandora, the first woman on earth. She was given a small box with specific instructions never to open it. But as women are curious by nature, you can guess she didn't obey these guidelines. (What would you do in her place?) When she opened the box, all kinds of evil were released into the world and only hope remained. Magritte is of course best known for his work "This Is Not a Pipe" (with the image of a pipe).
The focus of the painting by Courbet is of course not Pandora's Box. When something comes out of it, we interpret this as a new hope: children are the hope of the future.


Courbet (1819-1877) was a French painter. He was not the first to shock the world by showing body parts that normally would be covered. Indeed, when Pope Pius IV admired Michelangelo's "Last Judgment" in the Sistine Chapel, he ordered Daniele da Volterra (1509-1566) to add a number of robes and other garments. Volterra was nicknamed "Braghettone" ("The pant maker") ever since.

Answer: Juan Carreno de Miranda's "Eugenia Martinez Valleji"

Let's examine the different options I've given.
"Luncheon on the Grass" ("Le déjeuner sur l'herbe") is probably the best known of these artworks. This painting was made in 1863 and shows us two men dressed in contemporary fashion (one of them is even holding the very fashionable cane) and one woman, fully nude. In the background we see another woman taking a bath in a creek. However, this last woman wears a transparent veil (maybe made of organdie).
A number of you might know the "Portrait of Simonetta Vespucci". It depicts the bust of a young noblewoman, "dressed" (if one may call it this way) in nothing but a viper around her neck. This is not because she would always go out in this peculiar "outfit", but because her name is symbolized by a viper. The painting is indeed a profane nude, but not full-length.
In Boucher's painting, Mary-Louise O'Murphy is fully nude. However, she lies on her belly, so this profane nude is not "frontal" - quite the opposite.
The less famous of the options I gave, appears to be the right answer. Indeed, Juan Carreno de Miranda painted a young woman nude and in full length, while she is watching the painter. She holds a twig with some leaves in the place that is most convenient. Carreno de Miranda also painted the same model in the same pose, but fully dressed (just as Goya had to do with his "Maya"). By the way, Eugenia Martinez Valleji is not a skinny person at all. She might be even too much to handle for painters as Peter Paul Rubens (1593-1640) or Fernando Botero (born 1932), if you see what I mean...
Let's briefly mention the years in which these artists were born and died: Piero di Cosimo lived from 1461 until 1521, Titian (Tiziano Vecellio) from 1488 to 1576, Carreno de Miranda from 1614 to 1685, Boucher from 1703 to 1770, Francisco de Goya y Lucientes from 1745 to 1828 and Edouard Manet from 1832 to 1883.
Sources for this quiz include: "World History" by Carl Grimberg, "7000 Years of World History" edited by Christoph Columbus Verlag AG, "Verschueren Groot Encyclopedisch Woordenboek", "Le Petit Larousse", the Encarta Encyclopedia on CD-ROM, the Catholic Encyclopedia (www.newadvent.org/cathen), the Web Gallery of Art (www.wga.hu), the Webmuseum (www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth), Artnet (www.artnet.com) and Wikipedia (http:/en.wikipedia.org ).