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The
museum’s holdings of eighteenth-century European art are small
in number but diverse in subject and style. The dynamic compositions
and dramatic subjects found in seventeenth-century baroque art remained
popular, visible in Sebastiano Ricci’s Rape of Lucretia and
an Austrian polychromed wood sculpture of Saint Theresa of Avila.
Jean Baptiste Oudry’s large still life demonstrates the taste
for grand-scale paintings and the upper class taste for luxurious
interior decorations. Francesco Guardi’s view of the Piazza
San Marco captures the magical Venetian landmark and was one of
many he did for an enormous number of European noblemen who visited
the Italian city. Sir Joshua Reynolds’ life-sized portrait
of Henry, Eighth Lord Arundell of Wardour typifies both the grand
style of eighteenth-century English portraiture and the elevated
social and economic status of the English nobility. |