cover image Fifty Old Master Paintings from the Walters Art Gallery

Fifty Old Master Paintings from the Walters Art Gallery

Walters Art Gallery. Walters Art Gallery, $0 (128pp) ISBN 978-0-911886-34-4

This eloquently produced catalogue of works spanning a 12th century Spoleto-school crucifix fragment to one of Boucher's 18th century oval landscapes offers a splendid sampling of Maryland's prodigious Walters Gallery, which houses several hundred Old Master paintings, a dazzling multitude of rare objets d'art and one of the world's most spectacular jewelry collections. Best represented here are Italian Renaissance and Baroque works featuring supremely expressive secular portraits by Pontormo, Bronzino, Anguissola and Veronese; Raphael's Madonna of the Candelabra; a Tiepolo Madonna and Child; and the recently acquired Penitent Magdalen by Reni. Other particularly noteworthy pieces include El Greco's St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata and several Flemish treasuresVan der Goes's Donor with St. John the Baptist, a Van Dyck Virgin and Child and Jordaens's Flight into Egypt. Accompanying the finely photographed color plates are concise, informative entries by curator Zafran, which puts into context the artist and his influences, nicely summarizing the works' provenance and salient attributes regarding style and subject matter. The introductory remarks complement a terse biographical sketch of the Walters family, with some especially interesting points about the acquisition history of the Old Master collection. (May)