Details Competition 919, 920 and 921

The Details 919 was one that I could not find. I did find very similar images of the metal pot that the woman is balancing on her head. This was by Louis le Nain. I looked for Louis Le Nain on the web. However, it was nowhere to be found. Today's newspaper tells me that the picture is in the V&A and a search in the V&A site finds the image quite easily.

Tom Lubbock made an interesting claim for the image of the milkmaid, arguing that it should be widely known.

I am not sure, as I think the style of le Nain is a little wooden.

Well, last week's image (920) was a William Blake, and even though he has such a distinctive style, it was not so easy to find. It turned out to be Beatrice on the Car with Matilda and Dante.

This week's - 921 - is a seasonal one.

I think that the Christmas Details competition will be published on 20th December.

Details Competition 917

I thought that Tom Lubbock's choice of Vilhem Hammershoi in Details 917 was quite difficult to identify. This was partly because the detail might well have been from another period. Also, not that much of Hammershoi's work can be found outside printed texts. "Interior of Courtyard, Strandgade 30" has had little exposure.

However, as is so often the case, the picture had recently appeared in an exhibition in London. So the metropolitan audience of the Independent have a much greater chance of finding the answer.

It will be interesting to see how many winners are from London this Sunday.

(The paper is clearly failing now (given its declining sales) and the increasing attention to a smaller and smaller segment of the potential audience will only accelerate the decline. )

I also thought it was a pity that Tom Lubbock did not think to mention the significance of the title of the painting by Poussin in 916 - The Ashes of Phocion collected by his Widow. Mr Lubbock was more interested in the type of landscape. Perhaps the landscape surrounding other significant human events was worthy of note, too.

This blog is an occasional discussion of paintings which appear in Tom Lubbock's Details Competition in the Independent on Sunday.
The Christmas Competition is the most difficult, with usually about 16 paintings to identify.
Last year's Competition was almost impossible, I was unable to identify two images: one was an incorrect detail which Tom Lubbock had not selected. However, some entrants managed to find the correct answer. I believe that Mr Lubbock discounted this answer for all entrants who got all the other answers correct.
I was unable to find number 5. See below.