Albright–Knox Art Gallery

The Albright–Knox Art Gallery is an art museum with a collection of modern and contemporary art. Highlights of the museum include pieces spanning art throughout the centuries.

Impressionistic and Post-Impressionistic styles can also be enjoyed in works by artists of the nineteenth century such as Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh.

A Virtual Tour of the Albright–Knox Art Gallery

Highlights Tour of the Albright–Knox Art Gallery

“A Woman of Ambition” by James Tissot

James Tissot was a successful painter in Paris before moving to London in 1871. He became famous as a genre painter of fashionably dressed women.

Tissot left Paris after the Franco-Prussian War and resided in London from 1871.

He turned away from Impressionism and focused mainly on portraits and genre paintings of the Victorian upper classes in a more polished academic style.

These pictures are typical of Tissot’s work, depicting his subjects with almost photographic realism.

He composed ambiguous narratives that hinted at risqué behavior among the wealthy classes and the boundaries of propriety.

“The Lady’s Last Stake” by William Hogarth

“The Lady’s Last Stake” by William Hogarth depicts the moment when the woman has to make a fateful decision, to be ruined financially, or morally. The painting shows a man and a woman who have been gambling.

They were playing piquet at a table near an open fire in an elegant room. The woman has just lost her jewels and money to the man, an army officer.

He offers to play one more game of cards, and if she wins, he will return her fortune in his hat; but if she loses, she must accept him as her lover.

The woman holds the edge of the fire screen as she considers her options. On the floor is a discarded letter from her husband sending her money; it is addressed to Charlotte and signed Townly.