Author: Learn Antiques Team

CLAUDE MONET: Leading the Impressionist Way

At his young age, Claude Monet was both an artist and an entrepreneur. He would sell his charcoal drawings for 10 to 20 francs apiece. Monet learned how to use oil paints and outdoor or “en plein air” painting techniques from fellow artist Eugène Boudin. Monet’s works were among those that featured the modernisation of Paris in a unique way, with the essence of spontaneity and intuitive feeling visible on the canvas. Later in life, he focused more on the environment and atmosphere in his works while focusing less on modernity. Monet’s paintings were not only sought for locally but was quite popular in England and the United States as well.

SANDRO BOTTICELLI: Symbolising the Art of Beauty

Sandro Botticelli is the creator of probably two of the most famous paintings in the world. Botticelli was renowned for his numerous works depicting the Madonna but was also widely known for his mythological paintings. It is generally understood that he produced the under-drawings and his apprentices completed the pieces. Drawings that Botticelli himself completed were also copied by his assistants. His style was linear and thus easily imitated, which made identification of his own work extremely problematic. Although Botticelli symbolised the methodology of the Quattrocento period, he did not enhance or influence it with his own work. He had developed his own style, preferring the more Gothic approach.

THE DOUGHTY SISTERS: United in the Love of Art and Nature

The Doughty sisters were born to English explorer and writer Charles Doughty and his wife in San Remo, Italy. Freda ran modelling classes for children from their home. She would frequently use them as live models for the ceramic figurines that she fired in her own kiln. Dorothy, too, had a passion for nature and enjoyed painting. Together, the sisters had a huge impact on the survival of the Royal Worcester Company. Both with Freda’s children in the early 1930s, a little later, with Dorothy’s limited editions of birds for the American market. Different in tastes, different in what they produced, the sisters were united in a love of art and nature.