We are delighted to announce the publication of new ultra-high resolution images of the Linder Gallery, which have been shot by art photographer Tim Nighswander of www.imaging4art.com and allow the painting to be seen in even more minute detail.

Here’s Tim’s description of how he created the new images, which I hope you’ll agree, are spectacular:

The camera used to take the image was a Hasselblad H2d with a 39 mega pixel multi-shot back. The multi-shot shoots five separate times for each exposure with the color filter array shifting one pixel each time (one preview and then Red, Green 1, Green 2, Blue). Since each pixel has all the color data the processing does not require an algorithm to interpolate the missing information. This results in not only better color fidelity but also a significant improvement in clarity and detail. The lighting was with studio strobes with polarization on both the lights and on the camera lens to keep any reflection off the surface of the painting to a minimum. Read more…

Who are the  three conversing figures shown in the Windsor Drawing, almost certainly a preparatory drawing for the Linder Gallery? The excerpt below from  A Mysterious Masterpiece: The World of the Linder Gallery proposes a hypothesis: Read more…

A quick note on obelisks, as I see the one in the background of the painting is described as an ‘unlikely architectural feature’.

I don’t think this is quite right.  Obelisks were, in fact, rather common in northern architecture of the period, featuring regularly in formal gardens.  For example, Robert Dudley’s garden at Kenilworth(visited by Elizabeth I in 1575) was divided into four quarters, each of which had an obelisk in the centre, “rising pyramidically fifteen feet high” with an orb “of porphyry” on the top.  So, we shouldn’t be surprised that the garden in the background of the Linder gallery contains such a feature.  It may have been modeled on one of Hans Vredeman de Vries’s popular and widely circulated designs, an example of which is shown below.  We can also see, in this painting by Vredeman de Vries, a configuration of balcony, staircase, and obelisk more or less identical to the configuration of the Linder gallery.

The Royal Collection in Windsor Castle contains a drawing (RL 12983) showing the interior of a picture gallery that bears a striking resemblance to the Linder Gallery, showing a similar architectural space. There are some key differences though. For example, the ceiling of the space in the Windsor drawing is flat, and there is a door on the left hand side. The sculpture and astronomical instruments in the drawing appear different from those in the painting. Read more…