Xavier F. Salomon

In this week’s episode of Cocktails with a Curator, join Deputy Director and Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator Xavier F. Salomon as he explores a wonderfully curious elephant-shaped wine dispenser, one of the exquisite pieces of Du Paquier porcelain given to The Frick Collection by Melinda and Paul Sullivan in 2016. Although much remains unknown about this extraordinary vessel, it may be related to an elaborate object made for Empress Anna of Russia in which cup-bearing figures attached to a rotating tray pass beneath the trunk-shaped spout of a porcelain pachyderm.

In this week’s episode of Cocktails with a Curator, Deputy Director and Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator Xavier F. Salomon examines Gentile da Fabriano’s Madonna and Child, with Saints Lawrence and Julian,” currently on view on the third floor of Frick Madison. One of the great artists of what is traditionally referred to as the International Gothic style, Gentile traveled extensively on the Italian peninsula and was influenced by courtly works from across Europe.

In this week’s episode of Cocktails with a Curator, set a course for 18th-century Venice as Deputy Director and Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator Xavier F. Salomon discusses a pair of “vedute” (views) by Francesco Guardi. Displayed on the third floor of Frick Madison alongside works by Tiepolo and Rosalba Carriera, Guardi’s pictures present a lively city with color-coordinated boatmen, laundry hanging from balconies, and liveried attendants greeting dignitaries. This week’s complementarycocktail is the Sgroppino, a Venetian refreshment dating to the 16th century.

In this week’s episode of Cocktails with a Curator, explore Paolo Veneziano’s Coronation of the Virgin with Deputy Director and Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator Xavier F. Salomon. This magnificent panel—the most important work by the14th-century Venetian outside Europe—presents the Virgin and Christ in sumptuous garments and a choir of angels playing portable organs, lutes, trumpets, tambourines, and other instruments.

In this week’s episode of Cocktails with a Curator, Deputy Director and Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator Xavier F. Salomon focuses on Francesco da Sangallo’s St. John Baptizing, which can be found at the very center of the third floor of Frick Madison. Commissioned in the 16th century for a church in the Tuscan town of Prato, the bronze statuette has been installed atop a facsimile of the marble holy water font on which it was originally displayed, allowing visitors to see it as it was meant to be viewed.

In this week’s episode of Cocktails with a Curator, join Deputy Director and Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator Xavier F. Salomon as he delves into the mystery of three rare Saint-Porchaire objects currently on view in a room featuring enamels and clocks on the third floor of Frick Madison.

In this week’s Cocktails with a Curator, Deputy Director and Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator Xavier F. Salomon celebrates Women’s History Month by examining two exquisite pastels by Rosalba Carriera that recently entered the collection through a bequest from Alexis Gregory and are on view for the first time on the third floor of Frick Madison. Celebrated for her technically innovative pastel portraits, Rosalba was one of the most famous artists of 18th-century Italy, particularly remarkable given the male-dominated society in which she lived.

In this week’s episode of Cocktails with a Curator, Deputy Director and Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator Xavier F. Salomon discusses the life of the celebrated Dutch painter Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn by examining his largest self-portrait, the centerpiece of a room devoted to Rembrandt on the second floor of Frick Madison. Painted when he was deep in debt and facing financial ruin, the artist nonetheless presents a grand vision of himself. This week’s complementary cocktail is a whiskey sour.

In this week’s episode of Cocktails with a Curator, Deputy Director and Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator Xavier F. Salomon examines the only work by Cimabue in a public collection in the United States, a small panel depicting The Flagellation of Christ. Acquired by the Frick in 1950, the attribution of this work was a topic of debate until a sister panel was discovered in 2000, establishing that they once belonged to a larger ensemble by the 13th-century Florentine.

This week’s episode of Cocktails with a Curator has a Valentine’s Day theme! Deputy Director and Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator Xavier F. Salomon examines Claude Lorrain’s Jacob, Rachel, and Leah at the Well, a drawing from the Frick’s small but noteworthy collection of works on paper. A study for a larger landscape painting that now hangs at the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, the sheet depicts the biblical love story between Jacob and sisters Rachel and Leah.