The Private Life of a Masterpiece: Seventeenth Century Masters

Examine the full and fascinating stories behind three famous 17th Century works of art, not just how they came to be created, but also how they influenced others and came to have a life of their own in the modern world. All the works featured in the series were revolutionary, often shocking at the time or a ‘first' in some way. Behind the beautiful canvases featured are tales of political revolution, wartime escapes, massive ego clashes, social scandal, financial wrangling and shocking violence.

Episode 1: The Night Watch - Rembrandt's painting of a group of part-time soldiers setting out on parade is perhaps one of the world's greatest group portraits. It rivets all who come to see it and, in its own country, it has the status of a national symbol. This program tells the biography of the painting, from its conception in 1642 to its position today as the supreme painting in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. However, the painting is not actually the picture Rembrandt intended people to see. There are bits missing...

Episode 2: The Art of Painting - When Vermeer had nothing to offer a rich French visitor at his studio, experts believe he became determined to paint a picture so amazing that no buyer would ever walk away empty-handed. The Art of Painting was the result - his only picture that portrays an artist with a model. It is a pyrotechnical display of a painter's skills, and just how he achieved perfect perspective has been the subject of intense speculation and experiment for years. Vermeer must have cherished this painting because he kept it all his life, refusing to sell it despite great poverty. Much later, it also proved to be Hitler's favorite; he outbid Goering to acquire it.

Episode 3: The Rokeby Venus - One of the most celebrated nudes in Western art, the painting was unknown until the beginning of the 20th Century. The artist was Velazquez, court painter to Phillip IV of Spain at a time when the Inquisition did not sanction the depiction of the naked female form. The work was first recorded in 1651 in the collection of a decadent aristocrat. During the Napoleonic wars, it was brought to England and sold to Mr. Morritt of Rokeby Hall. The family put it on sale at the turn of the 19th Century, and at last the Venus gained respectability when the National Art Collection Fund purchased it for the nation after a personal intervention by the King.