Miscellaneous: Crab Spider

This spider's been sitting in the same spot on the same plant in the garden for several days now. Today I had a moment to do a portrait. I don't know what the species is, but it's a spider in the family Thomisidae, which includes spiders commonly known as "crab spiders," this one in the genus Mecaphesa.

Art I'm Looking at: The Tudor show at The Legion of Honor

Portrait of Henry VIII of England, 1540
Hans Holbein the Younger
Galleria Nationale d'Arte Antica, Rome

Yesterday I had a day off from work, so I went into San Francisco to the Legion of Honor to see the Tudor show now on there (through September 24). There was much of interest to see, but it's worth going just for the paintings by Hans Holbein the Younger. There are no less than five on view – offering a rare opportunity to see a large group of works by one of the world's greatest portraitists all at once. 

Hermann von Wedigh III, 1532
Hans Holbein the Younger
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

The paintings are on loan from the National Gallery of Art, in Washington D.C., the painting galleries of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, in Vienna, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York, and the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, in Rome. I've reproduced the four full-sized paintings here (the fifth is a miniature that I was unable to photograph well), along with a fairly spectacular full-length portrait of Queen Elizabeth I, not by Holbein.

Jane Seymour 1537
Hans Holbein the Younger
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Edward VI as a Child 1538
Hans Holbein the Younger
National Gallery of Art, Washington

Elizabeth 1, c.1599
Attributed to the workshop of Nicholas Hilliard
National Trust Collections, Hardwick Hall