Winged Victory.

I wish she still had her head. OTOH, that’s me; I’ve lost my head. Yours kind of rings true, too. I’m all cracked up. In more ways than one.

I saw her in the Louvre in Paris. Very impressive.

from

http://www.sanjose.com/history/cooper.html

A Painter Comes Home
San Jose’s most famous artist chronicled the passing of the frontier in grand and romantic canvases, thumbed his nose at society matrons and paid his bar bills from San Francisco to Santa Cruz with paintings of nudes. A century later, A.D.M. Cooper remains a legendary local figure, whose reputation for Bohemian excess outstrips his artistic achievements

By Geoffrey Dunn

In the spring of 1898, Jane Stanford, wife of railroad magnate Leland Stanford, commissioned A.D.M. Cooper, San Jose’s celebrated artist and bon vivant, to paint a still-life study of her jewelry. Mrs. Stanford was planning to raise money for the Stanford University Library by auctioning off a large collection of her diamonds, rubies, emeralds and sapphires, but she wanted to maintain an artistic record of her treasures for posterity. The acclaimed Cooper, she believed, was the right man for the job.

Notoriously proper and aristocratic, not to mention a staunch advocate of temperance, Stanford demanded that Cooper dress in formal attire and refrain from drink while he accomplished his task. Irked by her pretensions, Cooper stormed out of the Stanford mansion before completing his work. Back in his studio, he precisely added the final touches to the painting from memory, then placed his study in the window of a downtown San Jose saloon for the public to gawk at.

Upon learning of Cooper’s indecorous gesture, Stanford ordered her driver down the peninsula to retrieve the painting, which was then prominently displayed in the Leland Stanford Room of the Stanford Museum. “What a sad thing,” Lady Stanford reportedly opined about Cooper. “All that talent—dulled by John Barleycorn.”

I almost picked Rodin’s “The Kiss” for my favorite, but could not find a photo on the internet that did it justice. BTW, is the Rodin Sculpture Garden still at the Art Museum at Stanford University?.

There used to be lot of neat stuff in that little museum, including a really exquisite collection of Attic Vases. There was also a life-size painting of Mrs Stanford’s jewelry collection (I guess Leland had it commissioned for insurance purposes?)

At any rate, according to the museum brochure, this painting was a duplicate, an exact copy the artist painted of the original commission. It showed all Mrs Stanford’s broches, bracelets, necklaces and tiaras on black velvet, and was huge, about
4′x 10′. The story is Stanford and the artist had a dispute over how much the painter was to be paid for the work, and in revenge, the artist donated his extra copy to a San Francisco saloon where it hung for years.

Poseidon looks like he’s supposed to be throwing something. I’d lay bets on a trident.

I used to look like a damned Greek god.

Now I look like a god damned Greek.

Museum Collection: National Archaeological Museum, Athens, Greece
Archive Number: Athens 15161
Title: “Poseidon of Artemisium” or “Zeus of Artemisium”
Class: Free-standing statue
Material: Bronze
Height: 2.09 metres
Context: Found in sea iff CapeArtemisium
Original / Copy: Original Greek possibly by Kalamis.
Style: Early Classical
Date: ca 460 BC
Period: Classical