Three Birmingham Museums Trust masterpieces are currently available to view at the city’s prestigious Barber Institute of Fine Arts - the University of Birmingham venue which is often referred to as ‘the mini National Gallery of the Midlands’...
Birmingham’s Barber Institute of Fine Arts is currently the go-to place to enjoy iconic paintings from other collections. - the University of Birmingham venue which is often referred to as ‘the mini National Gallery of the Midlands’...
Birmingham’s Barber Institute of Fine Arts is currently the go-to place to enjoy iconic paintings from other collections.
Three internationally significant masterpieces have recently been lent to the venue for a two-year period by Birmingham Museums Trust.
The artworks have been loaned while Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery is completely rewired - a project that is expected to continue through to 2023/24.
The most famous of the three loans is Ford Madox Brown’s The Last Of England (below, left). The Pre-Raphaelite masterpiece is one of the city’s most important cultural treasures.
Petrus Christus’ The Man Of Sorrows (below) and Guercino’s Erminia And The Shepherd (below, right) will also hang alongside the Barber’s own outstanding collection.
The arrival of the three Birmingham Museums Trust paintings follows on from other recent high-profile loans to the Barber (see bottom of the page). These include the Allan Ramsay painting of Rosamund Sargent (from Holburne Museum), and two artworks from Tate - a major George Stubbs horse painting titled Mares And Foals In A River Landscape and a Thomas Jones view of Naples called The Capella Nuova Outside The Porta di Chiar.
The Last Of England by Ford Maddox Brown is one of Birmingham’s most iconic cultural treasures. A masterwork of Victorian painting, it depicts a young family huddled together on an open boat as they depart English shores for a new life abroad.
The work is circular in format and painted with hallucinatory attention to detail, creating an effect which has been likened to staring through a telescope into a vividly observed moment of reality.
Flemish painter Petrus Christus’ visionary The Man Of Sorrows is a tiny panel, measuring just 11.2cm x 8.5cm. The work is thought to have been painted around 1450 and was intended to be used as a personal aid to prayer. This was in keeping with the religious teachings of the day, which encouraged close contemplation of the physicality of Christ.
Guercino’s monumental Erminia And The Shepherd imagines a dramatic encounter between a young pagan princess, who is being pursued by the Christian army, and a ragged old shepherd.
Painted around 1620, the artwork is inspired by a scene from Italian poet Tasso’s epic composition, Jerusalem Delivered.
Other loans currently available to view at the Barber Institute...
Scottish artist Allan Ramsay painted Portrait Of Rosamund Sargent, Née Chambers in 1749. The portrait was created to celebrate his friend Rosamund’s marriage to another of his friends, John Sargent, for whom he also painted a portrait. The painting is unusual for the bold directness of the sitter’s gaze...
Eminent English animal artist George Stubbs painted the widely acclaimed Mares And Foals In A River Landscape in the 1760s. The painting, which shows a group of glossy horses presented in a finely balanced composition, has been voted one of the top 10 most popular paintings in Britain...
The Capella Nuova Outside The Porta di Chiara (1782) is the work of Thomas Jones - best known as a painter of Welsh and Italian landscapes. The exquisite little picture, completed from Jones’ painting room overlooking Naples, has in recent times been reappraised as a precursor to the Impressionists.
Three Birmingham Museums Trust masterpieces are currently available to view at the city’s prestigious Barber Institute of Fine Arts - the University of Birmingham venue which is often referred to as ‘the mini National Gallery of the Midlands’...
Birmingham’s Barber Institute of Fine Arts is currently the go-to place to enjoy iconic paintings from other collections. - the University of Birmingham venue which is often referred to as ‘the mini National Gallery of the Midlands’...
Birmingham’s Barber Institute of Fine Arts is currently the go-to place to enjoy iconic paintings from other collections.
Three internationally significant masterpieces have recently been lent to the venue for a two-year period by Birmingham Museums Trust.
The artworks have been loaned while Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery is completely rewired - a project that is expected to continue through to 2023/24.
The most famous of the three loans is Ford Madox Brown’s The Last Of England (below, left). The Pre-Raphaelite masterpiece is one of the city’s most important cultural treasures.
Petrus Christus’ The Man Of Sorrows (below) and Guercino’s Erminia And The Shepherd (below, right) will also hang alongside the Barber’s own outstanding collection.
The arrival of the three Birmingham Museums Trust paintings follows on from other recent high-profile loans to the Barber (see bottom of the page). These include the Allan Ramsay painting of Rosamund Sargent (from Holburne Museum), and two artworks from Tate - a major George Stubbs horse painting titled Mares And Foals In A River Landscape and a Thomas Jones view of Naples called The Capella Nuova Outside The Porta di Chiar.
The Last Of England by Ford Maddox Brown is one of Birmingham’s most iconic cultural treasures. A masterwork of Victorian painting, it depicts a young family huddled together on an open boat as they depart English shores for a new life abroad.
The work is circular in format and painted with hallucinatory attention to detail, creating an effect which has been likened to staring through a telescope into a vividly observed moment of reality.
Flemish painter Petrus Christus’ visionary The Man Of Sorrows is a tiny panel, measuring just 11.2cm x 8.5cm. The work is thought to have been painted around 1450 and was intended to be used as a personal aid to prayer. This was in keeping with the religious teachings of the day, which encouraged close contemplation of the physicality of Christ.
Guercino’s monumental Erminia And The Shepherd imagines a dramatic encounter between a young pagan princess, who is being pursued by the Christian army, and a ragged old shepherd.
Painted around 1620, the artwork is inspired by a scene from Italian poet Tasso’s epic composition, Jerusalem Delivered.
Other loans currently available to view at the Barber Institute...
Scottish artist Allan Ramsay painted Portrait Of Rosamund Sargent, Née Chambers in 1749. The portrait was created to celebrate his friend Rosamund’s marriage to another of his friends, John Sargent, for whom he also painted a portrait. The painting is unusual for the bold directness of the sitter’s gaze...
Eminent English animal artist George Stubbs painted the widely acclaimed Mares And Foals In A River Landscape in the 1760s. The painting, which shows a group of glossy horses presented in a finely balanced composition, has been voted one of the top 10 most popular paintings in Britain...
The Capella Nuova Outside The Porta di Chiara (1782) is the work of Thomas Jones - best known as a painter of Welsh and Italian landscapes. The exquisite little picture, completed from Jones’ painting room overlooking Naples, has in recent times been reappraised as a precursor to the Impressionists.
For further information, visit: barber.org.uk