The Met: European Paintings To 1800, Part The First

As would be expected of an "encyclopedic" museum, the Met has an extensive collection of European paintings, including just about all of the great Masters, with particular strengths (in numbers: Rembrandt, Vermeer, Velazquez)) here and there. Over our seven weeks in NYC, it took us several visits to do all these paintings--fitting them in with other Met visits too--and it will take me several posts to reflect some of what's there. And these are just the European paintings, to 1800. These paintings are not in strict chronological nor national order...sometimes they're in "themed" rooms, sometimes they're in different departments of the museum altogether. (E. g., there are two Hubert Robert paintings in the Decorative Arts rooms.) An encyclopedic museum presents classificatory challenges well beyond those of a museum that does just European paintings...for example, the National Gallery of Art (London).  

The Met's Giotto, an Adoration, c. 1320; the description says
that Giotto is generally considered the founder of Italian
painting...yet he is not mentioned at all in the museum's new
Siena: the Rise of Painting exhibit...which I'll get to in due
course

The Knock-Out (for us): van Eyk's Crucifixion and Judgement, both in original frames;
1420s; they need major restorative work, IMHO; but here one can see where Bosch got
some ideas, three generations later; and all the other major Northern masters; the Hell is
particularly lurid; I'm beginning to think of van Eyck as a fountainhead of all subsequent
painting...and not just in materials and technique...

Memling, portraits of Tommaso di Folco Portinari and Maria Baroncelli,
1470; Italians, a Medici banker and wife living in Bruges

Felippo Lippi, Portrait of a Woman and a Man at a
Casement, 1440

Domenico Ghirlandiao, Francesco Sassetti and his Son Teodoro,
1488

Ucello, Crucifixion, 1450s

Botticelli, Three Miracles of St. Xenobius, c. 1500

A Florentine marriage chest...nevermind the picture; some of Botticelli's
biggest hits are thought to have been from marriage chests (e.g., the
great Venus and Mars at the National Gallery (London)

Attributed to the workshop of van Eyck, 1430s; certainly
not van Eyck himself

Bosch, Adoration of the Magi, 1475

Giovanni Bellini, Virgin and Child, 1480s; among
the earliest Italian oils...

Mantegna, Holy Family with Saint Magdalene, 1495;
a rare distemper on wood panel...

Durer, Virgin and Child with St. Anne, 1519

Cranach, Samson and Delilah, 1528

Cranach, Judith and Holofernes, 1530

Lotto, Venus and Cupid, 1520s; note Cupid micturating on Venus...

Veronese, Mars and Venus United by Love, 1570

Raphael, Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints, 1504

Holbein the Younger, Herman von Wedigh III, 1532

Rubens, Forest at Dawn with a Deer Hunt, 1635

The lone (elder) Brueghel, The Harvesters, 1565

Rubens and Brueghel (Jan, elder), The Feast of Achelous, 1635;
"you do the faces, I'll do the landscape...the apprentices can do
the rest..."