Rose Van Lear
@rosevanlear.bsky.social
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A beauty to behold like a diamond in the coal Interests include music, HGTV, and art. Always looking for kindred spirits.
A beauty to behold like a diamond in the coal Interests include music, HGTV, and art. Always looking for kindred spirits.
![Art historical allusions abound in this monumental painting, which originally hung in the stair hall of Charles Lang Freer's residence in Detroit. Its composition recalls Italian Renaissance altarpieces of the Virgin Mary.
The striding central figure, with clouds billowing behind her like wings, was modeled on the Nike of Samothrace, known as the Winged Victory, a famous Hellenistic sculpture in the Musée du Louvre in Paris.
Thayer also looked closer to home for inspiration. The models were his three children: sixteen-year-old Mary with her brother Gerald and sister Gladys. Freer eventually acquired five paintings of the Thayer children, including two with Gladys appearing as an angel. The artist regarded these paintings of idealized female figures as among his most important works.
In the years following his wife's death in 1891, Thayer declared his children to be his "passion of passions." He confessed to Freer, "I paint, during this period of my life, almost nothing but my children, yet must sell [the works]." Freer paid the artist ten thousand dollars for A Virgin, the most he ever spent on a single painting.
#art #painting](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:2vxmhnxypd5vf36hidmlm5sr/bafkreicpyhfmkvno5b6zxjrhxoy6bwyjnvldogujtaa74hzrfrvgx7r6l4)
