The Venetian November panel from the National Gallery’s “Labours of the Months” cycle replaces agrarian toil with a courtly hunt, depicting a young huntsman with hounds and falcon in a vividly colored, aristocratic landscape.
The Colosso del’Appennino by Giambologna
A Renaissance marvel, Giambologna’s Colosso del’Appennino is a 10-meter mountain giant statue, once animated with water and hidden chambers, symbolizing Medici power and artistic ingenuity.
The Labours of the Months: October
Part of a Venetian ‘Labours of the Months’ series, this small painting depicts seasonal rural life with vivid colours, linking peasant work, nature’s cycles, and social order in a decorative, symbolic composition.
Weaving in Ancient Greece
Exploring the Amasis Painter’s Black-Figure Lekythos at the MET — a stunning ancient Greek vessel depicting women weaving, spinning, and folding wool, alongside a fascinating synchronized ritual dance scene.
Portrait of a Halberdier
Pontormo’s Portrait of a Halberdier captures a teenage Florentine soldier with striking psychological depth — a swaggering pose and direct stare betraying his youth, admired by Raphael, Michelangelo, and Vasari alike.
Portrait Medallion of Gennadios
Gennadios — a gold-on-sapphire-glass portrait medallion from Alexandria — is an exquisitely engraved masterpiece celebrating a musically accomplished youth, and one of the most captivating Late Antique treasures at the Metropolitan Museum.
The Labours of the Months: September
A unknown Venetian artist’s September — a man pressing grapes beneath a vine — forms part of a vivid Renaissance painted door series depicting the traditional twelve Labours of the Months.
Maiolica Credenza
Eleonora Gonzaga’s magnificent gift to her mother Isabella d’Este — twenty-three maiolica dishes by Nicola da Urbino, the “Raphael of Maiolica” — united mythology, Renaissance patronage, and extraordinary ceramic artistry.
Off the harbor by Ioannis Altamouras
Altamouras’s moody seascape Off the Harbor — boats dissolving into a blue-white sky with no clear horizon — reflects his Impressionist awakening at Denmark’s celebrated Skagen Colony, tragically cut short by tuberculosis.
The Labours of the Months: August
Twelve tiny Venetian panels — vivid with ultramarine skies, vermilion clothing, and lush landscapes — capture the peasant Labours of the Months with charming decorative simplicity, once adorning a Renaissance palazzo’s doors.