Chester Dale

American, 1883 - 1962

Explore Selected Works

See all 322 works of art
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Les enfants

Tsuguharu Foujita · c. 1929 · portfolio with 10 color etchings with roulette and aquatint on chine applique ·  Accession ID  1988.50.1-10

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Little Girl with a Bird (Petite fille à l'oiseau)

Tsuguharu Foujita · c. 1929 · etching and roulette in yellow, green, and red ·  Accession ID  1988.50.9

Honoré Daumier, French Theater, c. 1856, oil on wood, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.13

French Theater

Honoré Daumier · c. 1856 · oil on wood ·  Accession ID  1963.10.13

A bearded man, a young man, and five monks stand in a cream-white hall hung with a map and paintings in this horizontal painting. The people all have pale, peachy skin. The scene is lit from windows lining the wall to our left, where three monks stand, presumably talking. They and the other two monks wear long white robes with marine-blue hoods and cloth panels that hang down the fronts of the cassocks. Two monks have their hoods up and the other two have their hair cut into rings around their heads. The bearded man, Christopher Columbus, stands to the right on the other side of the hall, looking at a map hanging there. He has chin-length, dark hair and wears a bronze-brown, knee-length jacket, dark blue, knee-length pantaloons, and golden yellow stockings. His right hand, closer to us, is planted palm out against his hip, and he holds a red hat in that hand. The other foot is perched on a long bench that stretches along that wall. The young man sits and leans back on the bench with one forearm along the bench’s armrest. His other hand rests on Columbus’s knee, and Columbus rests his hand on that. The boy has long brown hair and wears a red cap, a parchment-white robe over yellow sleeves, sage-green stockings, and laced, toeless boots. Two bundles and a long stick are against the wall on our side of the bench. An object on the floor next to Columbus’s standing leg is covered by a brown cloth. A gold chain and a pink hoof protrude from the blanket. One of the monks standing behind Columbus wears a tight-fitting blue cap. A rosary hangs over his cassock from his waist, and extra panels of blue fabric drape down over his shoulders. Four paintings in our view hang near the high ceiling of the hall, which has arched openings and a pink floor. Doors or oversized shutters swing into view at the far end of the hall. The artist signed and dated the painting in the lower left corner, “Eug. Delacroix. 1838.”
Eugène Delacroix, Christopher Columbus and His Son at La Rábida, 1838, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.127

Christopher Columbus and His Son at La Rábida

Eugène Delacroix · 1838 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1963.10.127

Gilbert Stuart, Henrietta Marchant Liston (Mrs. Robert Liston), 1800, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1960.12.1

Henrietta Marchant Liston (Mrs. Robert Liston)

Gilbert Stuart · 1800 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1960.12.1

Shown from the waist up and in front of a dark background, a pale-skinned girl looks over her shoulder at us in this vertical portrait panting. She has wide-set hazel eyes under curved brows, a delicate nose, flushed cheeks, and her narrow, pink lips are closed over a pointed chin. Her brown hair falls in bangs to either side of her forehead and is otherwise pulled back. Her body is angled to our right almost in profile. Her white garment has a low neckline, high waist, and short, ruched sleeves. White fabric tucked into the neckline opens out to each side like a collar. The shadowy brown background behind her glows a little brighter around her head and neck.
Louis-Léopold Boilly, Caroline Mortier de Trévise, c. 1810/1812, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.2

Caroline Mortier de Trévise

Louis-Léopold Boilly · c. 1810/1812 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1963.10.2

Odilon Redon, Saint Sebastian, 1910/1912, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.57

Saint Sebastian

Odilon Redon · 1910/1912 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1963.10.57

A glass bottle, a glass carafe, a stemmed glass, several pieces of fruit, and white and blue cloths are arranged on a wooden table in this horizontal still life. The bottle and carafe are at the center of this composition. The bottle has a crimson-red label, and the carafe has a tall, narrow neck and a rounded body. The stemmed glass has straight, flaring sides, and it sits on the table just in front of the carafe. Several pieces of fruit, painted in reds and yellows, are interspersed on the white cloth that surrounds the glassware. The muted, celestial-blue tablecloth is patterned with scrolls and leaves, and it bunches around the objects on the tabletop. The wall behind the table is mottled with cool blues and greens, and a brown line, perhaps a chair rail, runs from behind the still life to the right edge of the painting. Short brushstrokes are visible throughout.
Paul Cezanne, The Peppermint Bottle, 1893/1895, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.104

The Peppermint Bottle

Paul Cezanne · 1893/1895 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1963.10.104

A man, woman, a small table, chair, and two fragments of walls float on an octagonal, straw-colored floor amid a landscape with bare, rolling, olive-green hills in this stylized, vertical painting. The man and woman have pale skin and are positioned on opposite sides of the table from each other. To our left, the heavily-built man stands with his right hand, to our left, planted on the white tablecloth that nearly reaches the floor. He is cleanshaven with curly black hair, a round face, and a prominent nose. His large, dark eyes are deeply set, and a few cross-hatched black lines could indicate shadows or a black eye. His rumpled suit, vest, shirt, and tie are all sand brown. He looks toward a woman seated on our side of the table, opposite him. Her body is angled away from us to our right. Her blond hair is pulled up and she wears a white, sleeveless, floor-length dress that drapes over her shoulders and down her back. Her wooden chair has a teal-blue inset panel at the back and turned legs, and it sits on a pumpkin-orange, rectangular area rug. The paneled floor seems to float in the landscape. The robin’s egg-blue door to our right, opposite the woman, opens inward in its frame, and the corner above the top right is stacked with laid bricks. A sliver of wall alongside the door frame suggests the turning of a corner in the room. To our left, behind the man, a second fragment of yellow-paneled wall stands behind the corner of a dark, mahogany dresser or cabinet carved along its back with curving, S-shaped molding. A framed picture showing the head and shoulders of a woman in tones of white and gray against a periwinkle-blue background hangs at the top of the yellow wall. The curving back of a mint-green, upholstered chair peeks out over the woman’s right shoulder. The floor is set among barren hills with a watery blue sky above. The painting is created mostly with areas of flat colors with outlines and hatched shading in black and white, like pen strokes. The artist signed the painting on the floating floor near the lower right corner, “G. de Chirico.”
Giorgio De Chirico, Conversation among the Ruins, 1927, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.107

Conversation among the Ruins

Giorgio De Chirico · 1927 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1963.10.107

A dark-haired, disembodied head of a haloed man with pale, peach skin floats against a red and yellow background in this vertical portrait. The man’s hair seems to be flattened against his forehead, and extends beyond his head at the back in a way that suggests it may become a cap or hood. His face turns toward us, and he looks down to our left under arched eyebrows. He has a prominent hooked nose and a brushy mustache. Behind his head, the background is divided into a tomato-red zone for the top half and a golden yellow field below, separated by a thin, pine-green line. Two red and green apples hang from a branch near the upper right corner. The thin yellow halo floats over his head to the left of the branch. A pine-green, stylized, vine-like form curves up from the bottom edge of the panel and ends with flat, sunshine yellow, square shapes, perhaps abstracted flowers or fruit. A hand near the lower right holds one end of the vine like a cigarette between fingertips. The vine seems to turn into a serpent’s head beyond the man’s fingers. Numbers and letters are painted in green in the lower left: “1889” and “P Go.”
Paul Gauguin, Self-Portrait, 1889, oil on wood, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.150

Self-Portrait

Paul Gauguin · 1889 · oil on wood ·  Accession ID  1963.10.150

Bibliography

1929

  • Dale, Maud. Before Manet to Modigliani from the Chester Dale Collection. New York, 1929.

1933

  • Hirschland, Ellen B. [Chester Dale], in Dictionary of American Biography. Supplement Seven (1961-65). Edited by John A. Garraty. New York, 1965: 161-162.

1963

  • MacNeil, Neil. "Chester Dale: Collector." McCalls (November 1963): 121+.

1973

  • Finley, David Edward. A Standard of Excellence. Washington, D.C., 1973: 109-114, 151.

1974

  • Walker, John. Self-Portrait with Donors: Confessions of an Art Collector. Boston, 1974: 46, 154-177.

1986

  • Hahnloser-Ingold, Margrit. "Collecting Matisses of the 1920s in the 1920s," in Matisse: The Early Years in Nice. Exh. cat., National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1986: 253-256.