Your Art Gallery: Allegorical Paintings Quiz

Answer: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

We have seen the work of Pieter Bruegel the Elder elsewhere in this virtual gallery. One of the greatest artists of the Renaissance period, Bruegel was born in Breda, Netherlands around 1525 and is best known for his landscapes and peasant scenes.

Painted just a year before the artist's death, "The Blind Leading the Blind, Blind" (also sometimes called "The Parable of the Blind") shows figures with different afflictions of the eye finding their way in a disorderly line.

Painted in distemper on linen canvas, this painting can be seen at the Museo di Capodimonte in Naples, Italy.

Answer: Lorenzo Costa the Elder

Lorenzo Costa il Vecchio was born in 1460 in the northern Italian city of Ferrara. He is best-known today for the "Bentivoglio Altarpiece", a magnificent fresco adorning the walls of the church of San Giacomo Maggiore in Bologna.

Painted around 1505-06, "Allegory of Isabella d'Este's Coronation" earned Costa the position of court painter to the Gonzaga of Mantua. The painting depicts Isabella in her role as patron of the arts, surrounded by harmony, whilst a battle scene rages in the distance. The Virtues, Perseverance and Purity are seated on the ground in the centre of the painting, watching over Isabella's peaceful world.

This painting was part of a collection given by Duke Charles I of Nevers (reigned 1627-37) to Cardinal Richelieu, a cardinal during the reign of King Louis XIII of France. Consequently, having made its way to France, it became part of the collection at the Louvre, where it remains today.

Answer: Francisco Goya

We have seen work by the great Francisco Goya elsewhere in this virtual gallery. Done in oil on plaster, our featured work is one of his fourteen so-called "Black Paintings", done in his latter years. The paintings in this series of dark works explore themes of aging and death.

"Witches' Sabbath" shows the moonlit silhouette of Satan in the form of a goat against the background of a coven of cowering, terrified witches. Only one young girl, on the extreme right of the picture, sits defiantly, apparently unphased. Did Goya perhaps intend this character to represent himself?

Some half a century after Goya's death, in the mid 1870s, the "Black Paintings" were taken down from the walls of his house and transferred to canvas supports. Unfortunately, some 55 inches of "Witches Sabbath" was lost in this process (leaving a painting now 172 inches wide by 55 inches high). Today it can be seen along with the other works in the series at the Museo del Prado in Madrid. Spain.

Answer: Jan Vermeer

Johannes Vermeer, born in Delft in 1632, specialized in interior genre scenes, most of which were painted in the same couple of rooms in his Delft house. He produced only two allegorical works, our featured one and "The Allegory of Faith" which can now be seen at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

"The Art of Painting" dates to 1665-68. The artist's second-largest work and also one of his most famous, it depicts the artist at work in his imaginary studio.

Our featured work is owned by the Austrian Republic and is displayed at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.

Answer: Paulo Veronese

Born Paolo Caliari in the northern Italian city of Verona in 1528, he was known as Paolo Veronese (i.e. "Paulo the Veronavian"). Although born in Verona, he lived much of his life in Venice, and he is considered one of the three great Venetian artists of the 16th century, alongside Titian and Tintoretto.

"Allegory of Virtue and Vice" is also known as both "Allegory of Wisdom and Strength" and "The Choice of Hercules". Typical of this artist's work, it is a large painting, measuring 86 inches in height by 69 inches wide, making the people depicted almost life size.

This work is now part of the Frick Collection, on display in the Henry Clay Frick House on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York City.

Answer: Hieronymus Bosch

Born Jheronimus van Aken in 1450 in the city of 's-Hertogenbosch, then in the Duchy of Brabant in the Burgundian Netherlands, Hieronymus Bosch is noted for his spectacular imagery and his painstaking landscapes. Only about 25 of his works have survived, mostly triptych altarpieces or parts thereof, the most famous of which is "The Garden of Earthly Delights", which is on display at the Prado in Madrid.

"Allegory of Intemperance", also called "Allegory of Gluttony and Lust", is one frame from an original triptych. At the top of the scene is a fat man riding a barrel of wine while a swimmer delivers a plate of meat. Meanwhile, under the drapes to the right, a couple prepare for another of the deadly sins. One of the other surviving panels from this triptych is "Death and the Miser", depicting the sin of avarice.

This painting is part of the collection at the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut.

Answer: Giovanni Bellini

Born in Venice sometime around 1430, Giovanni Bellini was the son of Jacopo Bellini, the brother of Gentile Bellini and the brother-in-law of Andrea Mantegna, all noted artists. The great Titian was one of his students.

"Holy Allegory" was painted between 1490 and 1500. The scene shows Mary accompanied by two saints or virtues on the left hand side. In the centre, children play around the tree of knowledge, whilst Job and Saint Sebastian watch from the right side of the painting. In the background, a centaur stands guard over a shepherd sheltering in a grotto.

This masterpiece can be seen at the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence, Italy.

Answer: Artemisia Gentileschi

Artemisia Gentileschi was born in Rome in 1593 and was almost unique in the 17th century. As you probably worked out from her "self-portrait", the artist was female, in a time when women rarely held jobs, let alone were accepted as artists. She was the first woman admitted to Florence's fine art academy, 'Accademia di Arte del Disegno'

"Self-portrait as the Allegory of Painting" is often just called "La Pittura" ("Painting"). Even this fairly straightforward painting displays many of the feminist themes (virtually unheard of at the time) that are more self-evident in Gentileschi's other works, for example "Salome with the Head of St. John the Baptist" or "Samson and Delilah".

Gentileschi came to England to work in 1638 and our featured work found its way into the collection of King Charles I. After the Restoration it was returned to the Royal Collection, where it remains today.

Answer: Leandro Bassano

Also called Leandro dal Ponte, Leandro Bassano was born in 1557 in the city of Bassano del Grappa (from which the family took its name), near Venice. Leandro came from a family of painters: his father was Jacopo Bassano and his older brother was Francesco Bassano the Younger.

"Allegory of the Element Earth" is Leandro's interpretation of a work originally painted by his father. Jacopo painted a series of four paintings: the element water representing winter, air representing spring and fire representing summer in the other three works. Here Leandro lays out his vision of 'earth' and autumn with workers busily harvesting fruits and game. In the background Cybele, the Roman goddess of fertility, crosses the sky in a carriage hauled by a pair of lions. The Bassano family were amongst the first Renaissance artists to use a mix of regular humans and common scenes within their allegorical interpretation of mythological events and stories.

This painting is part of the collection displayed at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland.

Answer: Gustav Klimt

Gustav Klimt was born in 1862 in the town of Baumgarten on the outskirts of the Austrian capital, Vienna. A leading member of the Vienna Secession movement, Klimt was heavily influenced by Japanese art. Many of his works were not fully appreciated by the powers that be in early 20th-century Austria, and some were described as pornographic.

Klimt began working on "Death and Life" in 1908, and took eight years to complete it. The work combines the beauty and free-spirited nature of youth with man's visions of his approaching demise.

The paintings hangs in the Leopold Museum in Vienna.