Object Explorations

Caspar David Friedrich’s painting, The Sea of Ice, captures the era’s opposing sentiments regarding exploration and human nature. One one hand, we see the beauty of the final frontier; it's awe inspiring wonder. But shown too are subtle cautionary warnings. Indeed, the piece offers a critique on the notion that progress is always beneficial; that no frontier should be left unexplored. Fittingly encompassing these paradoxical sentiments is the sense of the sublime pervading the painting. Both feelings of terror and pleasure are invoked, coinciding with the juxtaposed arguments…

Sir Joshua Reynolds was an acclaimed artist and identified as England’s most eminent portraitist. Nearly all his portraits were of young English children. The children were angelical, with soft, smooth features. Reynolds’ The Age of Innocence is his most renowned and widely distributed piece and has been document to have many replicas (Tate Britain). Reynolds’ artwork of English children is known to have positive reception as they captivate the hearts of viewers. Reynold’s illustration of the child represents a profound meaning and is extended through art to touch and move the…

Thunderstorm with The Death of Amelia, c.1784.

William Williams (1758-1797)

Caernarvonshire, Wales; Snowdown in the background

Available on the online Tate collection.

William Williams painted this piece during the Romantic period, highlighting themes of the sublime and love of the Romanticism era. Using oil paint on canvas Williams use vivid colours to represent life off in the distance and upon the couple’s clothing while choosing darker colours to bring to life a dark, violent storm. The couple painted are Celadon and Amelia, lovers from James Thomson’s poem…

This model ship, like many others on display at the Art Gallery of Ontario, is part of the Thomson collection, a massive collection of over 2000 works of art, all donated from Ken Thomson’s personal art collection. Among these donations was a collection of 130 model ships, all dating between the 17th century to 20th century. The model depiction of a British or French ship-of-the-line is primarily crafted of bone and horn, with silk to craft the ropes, and wood to function as a base. Intricately crafted and finely detailed, the exact maker of this model ship is unknown, but was most likely…

Produced by the Chelsea Porcelain Factory during the 1700s, “Figure of Bacchus” is inspired by Michelangelo’s original sculpture of Bacchus, the God of Wine. The figure, made of soft-paste porcelain, embodies gentle, lighthearted energy that emanates a romantic essence through the fluidity in the subject’s movement, articles of clothing, and identity. Soft-paste porcelain is a relatively fragile but notably attractive ceramic as it can be painted, carved, and decorated with a lot of precision to detail. With the use of hand-painted Polychrome enamel, color and further dimension are added…

Mary Ann Rebecca Alabaster,

“The Artist’s Painting-Room”

June 12, 1830. Oil on canvas, unframed: 84.5 x 70.4 cm.

Gift of Morton Rapp in memory of Hyman M. Smith, 2008. © 2018 Art Gallery of Ontario.

In her oil painting “The Artist’s Painting-Room”, Mary Ann Alabaster offers a powerful perspective on art through the female lens. By situating her own self portrait within the painting amongst other pieces by celebrated Spanish Baroque painters, so to does she situate herself in the annals of art history. Like prominent writers of her time, such as…

The palampore is a floral textile created for European trade and consumption. This piece of cloth was used as a bed cover or hung up as decoration. The textile consists of mountains with ragged edges, floral vines, various patterns and animals and human figures. The bed cover was created for European trade as well as for Dutch people that were in Indonesia and Sri Lanka. Heavy influences of Middle-Eastern and Hindu culture were implemented into the creation of palampores; with each piece carefully handcrafted with intricate designs using the Kalamkari technique which involves twenty-three…

Joseph Wright of Derby’s painting, “Vesuvius in Eruption, with a View over the Islands in the
Bay of Naples” created in 1776, was inspired during his time in Italy from 1773-1775, where
Wright was constantly surrounded by extensive artistic inspiration. Wright’s inspiration for
“Vesuvius in Eruption” came from his time in Naples where he observed Mount Vesuvius.
Unfortunately, he never actually witnessed the remarkable volcanic eruption, thus his creation
depended greatly on his imagination (Tate, 1991). Wright expresses his inclination to illustrate
the contrast…

Crafted in 1751 by Mr. Fenn in Hertfordshire, England, the object displayed is a collar, belonging to Peter the Wild Boy. The relatively small object is better used as a representative item rather than one that speaks for itself. Peter the Wild Boy was found naked and alone in a forest in Germany in 1725. He could not speak, he could only walk on his hands and feet, and greeted his amused ‘saviours’ with passive interest. The boy was taken in by King George the First and after multiple attempts of resocialization, was sent to live on a farm in Hertfordshire. After wandering off  one…

The “Earnshaw 512” is a marine chronometer, a device invented by English horologist John Harrison for determining longitude at sea. This device measures 178 x 210 x 210 mm and is currently housed at the National Maritime Museum in London. The invention of the marine chronometer arose from the offer of a substantial reward by the British Government in the wake of a 1707 naval disaster in which four ships and 2,000 lives were lost due to faulty navigation. This particular marine chronometer is a later model, developed by Thomas Earnshaw sometime around 1800, and has a curious history. The “…

James Ward (1769-1859)

Gordale Scar (A View of Gordale, in the Manor of East Malham in Craven, Yorkshire, the Property of Lord Ribblesdale) c. 1812-1814, exhibited 1815

Tate Collection

This painting was composed by James Ward sometime between 1812 and 1814, and is made up of oil paint on canvas. It was exhibited in 1815, so had received acclaim well within the artist’s lifetime. The composition depicts a scene of towering limestone cliffs near Settle, Yorkshire, as well as an assortment of cattle resting and grazing at the base of the cliffs. The painting was…

"Paysage de Susten en Suisse"

Artist: Xavier Leprince

Date of Creation:1824

Location: Louvre Museum, Paris, France.

Created in 1824 by French artist Xavier Leprince this painting is titled "Paysage de Susten en Suisse". The title translates to mean "Landscape of Susten Switzerland" and it is currently on display in the Louvre Museum in Paris, France. It was purchased from the special collection of King Charles X in 1826 towards the…

Eighth drawing in an Unnamed Collection of vignettes illustrating Confessions, 1825

Artist: Paul Delaroche

Appears in the British Museum’s online collection

© The Trustees of the British Museum

This simple French style drawing is the eighth in a series of vignettes illustrating Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Confessions. With dimensions of 61 millimetres in height and 85 millimetres in width, this small picture was produced in 1825 by French artist Paul Delaroche, and contrasts his more famous dramatic paintings of historical scenes. The sketch…

The fan titled “The Ladies Travelling Fan, of England and Wales” currently in the Victoria and Albert Museum’s collection was manufactured in the year 1788 crafted and published by Thomas Balster, a print publisher and fan maker from the United Kingdom. This object, which is an unfinished fan mount, is a print of all the rivers, counties, roads and markets of England and Wales at the time, as well as some countries that surround them. The fan leaf has intricate and colourful soft-ground etchings, which makes the whole map, and it is coloured by hand. The fan mount…

"Vase", c. 1780-1790
Josiah Wedgwood (est. 1759)
Etruria, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England
On Display at the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Ontario
Taken on iPhone, Object Number: 928.22.10

This vase was manufactured in England, by Wedgwood company founder Josiah Wedgwood. There is not much information about the vase, nor the collection it has come from itself, this piece was just the beginning of the Wedgwood Company. This black basalt vase looks as though it belongs in a time period prior to its creation, but the vase was actually made as an imitation of a vase…

The book Exotic Botany by Sir James Edward Smith and James Sowerby consists in a collection of descriptions and illustrations of exotic plants and flowers, which were introduced in Europe throughout the long-eighteenth century. Its scope was to introduce these plants to European cultivators, and to inform them about where to find them and, possibly, how to acquire them. Volume 1 of the complete work, which is made up of two books, is currently displayed at the Royal Ontario Museum, in Toronto, and is part of a temporary installation titled Floral: Desire and Design. The…

This painting is titled “Thunderstorm with the Death of Amelia” done by William Williams in 1784. Williams’s inspiration for this painting is James Johnson’s “Summer” poem from his collection called The Seasons. The painting represents Caledon losing his lover in a thunderstorm. Just at first glance, the terror is prevalent within the darkness of the storm. This painting incorporates many themes of the sublime that Edmund Burke emphasizes such as terror and ominous vibes. The overall aesthetic of the painting is very obscure and projects a…

Joseph Mallord William Turner (British, 1775 - 1851)

Modern Rome - Campo Vaccino, 1839, Oil on canvas

91.8 × 122.6 cm (36 1/8 × 48 1/4 in.), 2011.6

On Display at The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles

 Modern Rome - Campo Vaccino, portrays the city of Rome in the “modern” day under the hazy light of a rising moon and setting sun. The artist, Joseph Mallord William Turner, was known as  “the painter of light” due to his inclination towards using brilliant colour in his landscapes and seascapes, and frequently painted Rome and various…

“Mug” 

Newcastle Pottery

Newcastle upon Tyne, England 

On Display at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England

Created by Newcastle Pottery in Newcastle upon Tyne, a small English city in the northeast, this memorial mug in honour of Lord Nelson’s death followed a tradition of memorial pottery in the 19th century. Created in 1805, this mug marked the year Lord Nelson fell in battle and passed away fighting the Napoleonic war in the Battle of Trafalgar on the 21st of October. The mug depicts a soldier and a sailor standing on either side of a…

Located at the Art Gallery of Ontario’s Thomson Collection of Ship Models, The Prisoner of War model of Victory, a British Three-decker 100 Gun Warship was created sometime between 1795 and 1815. Made out of fruitwood, brass and bone, it was created in Great Britain, presumably by French sailors. The chief mode of international travel during the Romantic era, sailing ships were crucial to narratives involving exploration, discovery and tourism. Despite the importance of ships, life at sea was dangerous and often terrifying, with travellers and seamen at great risk of malnutrition…

Tea and Coffee Service for Twelve, in Its Original Presentation Case, c. 1788-1799

Imperial Manufactory, 1718-1864

Vienna, Austria

On display at the Gardiner Museum, Toronto, ON

            Towards the end of the 17th century, Europe experienced a booming popularity of Chinese and Japanese porcelain. Seeking to copy the designs, countries all over Europe began producing their own versions of porcelain. In Austria, porcelain was on the rise, leading to the establishment of the Vienna Imperial Manufactory…

Joseph Wright’s “An Iron Forge” (1772), is a vivid and technically intricate painting depicting a blacksmith working on iron in a forge surrounded by his family. Produced at the advent of the romantic artistic movement, shortly after industrialization had begun to make its mark on the world, the painting offers a novel picturesque representation of the merging of artistic and industrial processes. Its exalting presentation of the life of the labourer was unique for its time, and the result is the creation of new understandings into the matter of these evolutionary processes. Wright’s…

Henry Fuseli’s 1781 oil on canvas painting The Nightmare depicts a sleeping woman being tormented by an imp and mare as she sleeps. The woman may be Anna Landolt, a woman Fuseli loved but who did not return his feelings. Her rejection deeply impacted Fuseli, leaving him psychologically tormented. As a result, he created this painting, where he expressed his feelings by subjecting Landolt to the same mental torture she made him experience. Similar themes are present in Samuel Coleridge’s 1798 poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” Akin to Fuseli, Coleridge suffered psychological…

During the 1770s, Jeremias Schultz painted the portrait of a young black woman dressed in a beautiful silk gown. She is standing upright looking directly at the viewer while holding an orange blossom in her right hand as the orange tree is positioned behind her. On her left in the background is an obelisk situated in the distance. The arrangement and underlying impressions of this painting greatly portray the themes of the sublime, the romantic imagination, and the picturesque. Through the employment of these concepts, Schultz greatly defies the colonial structure and dominance…

Karl Schinkel’s painting Castle by the River (1820) offers a glimpse of what was once a man-made architecture entirely absorbed by nature. The background of the artwork involved two artists, Schinkel had created this oil painting based on the narrative of a poet, Clemens Brentano. There are several elements of verism as Schinkel provided a detailed and realistic approach to the abandoned structure by overlaying it with vegetation and wildlife. Although realism was introduced in the 1850s, Brentano’s narrative rendered a subtle introduction while honouring the…