Watson and the Shark
1778 · Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit
Brook Watson really did lose a leg to a shark in Havana harbor, and Copley put a Black sailor at the top of the rescue.
★ 7.2
Browse by time · decade
1770s
1770 – 1779
Showing 6 artworks from the 1770s
A Young Girl Reading
1776 · National Gallery of Art, Washington, District of Columbia
For once Fragonard is not being naughty. A girl in yellow reads, and the ruff at her wrist is a few flicks of impasto.
★ 6.9
The Meeting
1772 · The Frick Collection, New York City
He is coming over the garden wall and she has just seen him, with a statue of Venus watching from above. Painted for Madame du Barry.
★ 6.1
The Artist Moved to Despair at the Grandeur of Antique Fragments
1779 · Kunsthaus Zurich, Zurich
An artist weeps beside a colossal marble foot and a pointing hand, defeated by the size of what antiquity had already managed.
★ 6.1
The Shipwreck
1772 · National Gallery of Art, Washington, District of Columbia
Masts splintering, survivors in the surf, and the whole thing arranged for people who wanted to feel terror from a safe distance.
★ 5.7
George Washington at Princeton
1779 · Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton
Washington leans on a cannon with captured flags at his feet. Peale knew him and served in the war, so this is the man.
★ 5.2