Museum Holiday Presents 2007
Gifts for the Home and Office for Art Museum Lovers
Four museums offer unique holiday presents for the home and office. Gifts inspired by ancient, Renaissance and Modern art are sold through the institutions' websites.
Unusual gifts from American and British museums are available for purchase by mail order and the Internet this holiday season.
National Gallery, London, UK:
- Tree Man Figurine. £25. A hand-painted resin figurine is based on a detail from the right panel of the enigmatic triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights (ca. 1500) by insightful Netherlandish painter Hieronymus Bosch (1453-1516). Other reproductions adapted from the Museo del Prado's masterpiece are available at various prices.
- Leonardo Angel Detail Poster. £12. The Virgin of the Rocks (ca. 1495-1508) by Italian Renaissance genius Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) is one of the artist's greatest paintings. The oil on panel work shows the Virgin Mary, infant Christ Child, young St. John the Baptist and an angel in a mirky enclosed grotto. Jesus' cousin holds a cross and a scroll that reads "Behold the lamb of God." Leonardo's technique of chiaroscuro is demonstrated by the work's dramatic effects of light and shadow. Infrared reflectographic studies indicate that the painting has two underdrawings. The first one shows many pentimenti (small changes) in the composition's initial design. The other reveals an entirely different image of a kneeling female figure looking downward; the baby Jesus is conspicuously absent. The National Gallery's poster (830 x 590 mm) of the painting is a detail of the seated angel's face.
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia, PA USA:
- Sumerian Dignitary. $60.00. (US). Small votive statues of worshippers were placed in Mesopotamian temples to honor deities. This hand-painted plaster statue reproduces one found in the temple of Nintu, the mother goddess, at Khafajah, Iraq. The site dates to Sumer's Early Dynastic Period (ca. 2650-2550 B.C.).
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY USA:
- Impressionist and Early Modern Paintings Engagement Calendar 2008. $15.95 (US). Produced to accompany the special exhibition Impressionist and Early Modern Paintings: The Clark Brothers Collect at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (May 22-August 19, 2007), this lovely spiral-bound engagement calendar in weekly format celebrates remarkable 19th- and early 20th-century paintings in the collections of rival brothers Robert Sterling Clark (1877-1956) and Stephen Carlton Clark (1882-1960), the heirs to the Singer sewing machine fortune. Artists represented in the older Clark's collection include Auguste Renoir (1841-1919), Winslow Homer (1836-1910), John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) and Mary Cassatt (1844-1926). His younger sibling acquired works by Georges Seurat (1859-1891), Paul Cézanne (1839-1906), Henri Matisse (1869-1954), Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Edward Hopper (1882-1967) and Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890).
Vander Ende-Onderdonk House, Ridgewood, NY USA:
- Kitty Tile Coasters. $7.50 (US) each. Four colorful paintings of two felines, whimsically attired, by artist, musician and scholar Arthur Kirmss, co-curator of New York's Vander Ende-Onderdonk House, have been turned into novelty tile coasters sure to be the topic of discussion at any home party or office event. Each measures 4.25 x 4.25 inches and is 1/16-inch thick. A polyester resin that accepts dye in the tiles' coating is used when the images are applied. Each coaster has four felt pads to safeguard furniture from scratches. Dishwasher safe, they're not for use with abrasive cups and mugs. Choose from four subjects: Captayne Elvis Morgan of Port Royal, Jamaica, Capitan Tito Gato, Cuba, Tito Princeps and Elvis Rex.
The copyright of the article Museum Holiday Presents 2007 in Art Galleries/Museums is owned by Stan Parchin. Permission to republish Museum Holiday Presents 2007 must be granted by the author in writing.
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