Audio Tour

Visita guiada del Edificio Oeste: Selección destacada

Use su teléfono inteligente para explorar una amplia selección de obras por medio de las voces de curadores de la National Gallery of Art. Siga su propio ritmo escuchando cuantas paradas desee, en el orden de su preferencia. Para escuchar la información sobre una obra de arte, ingrese el número de la parada en la casilla a continuación, seleccione ‘ir’ y luego ‘comenzar’ al visualizar la parada. Por favor, respete a los otros visitantes, use auriculares para escuchar la audioguía.

West Building: Featured Selections (English)

23 stops

  • A woman and winged angel, both with pale, peach skin, are situated in a church interior in this tall, narrow painting. To our left, the angel has long, blond, curly hair, smooth skin, and is smiling. The wings are outlined in royal blue, and they blend from blue to green to yellow to crimson. The angel holds one hand, closer to us, up at chest height with the index finger subtly pointing upward. Holding a long scepter in the other hand, the angel angles their body toward the woman to our right. The angel wears a gold jewel and pearl-encrusted crown and a jeweled long, voluminous robe in scarlet-red and shimmering gold brocade. The neck and along the opening down the front are lined with pearls and jewels. The angel looks toward the woman, who wears a royal-blue dress tied with a red belt at the high waist. Her long brown hair is tied back but one tendril falls over her left shoulder, to our right. She kneels facing us with her raised hands facing outward. Her head is tipped a bit to our left, and she looks up and into the distance to our right with lips slightly parted. She kneels behind a book lying open on a low table. A vase of white lilies and a red cushion lies on the floor in front of the table, close to us. The floor is decorated with people and scenes outlined in black and set into square panels, as if inlaid with wood. The church behind and above the people has a row of tall, narrow arches with bull’s-eye glass windows. A walkway lined with columns runs above the arches, and sunlight comes in through arched windows under the flat wood ceiling. A white dove flies toward the woman on gold lines from a window at the upper left of the painting. Latin words painted in gold capital letters are exchanged between the people. The angel says, “AVE GRA PLENA.” The letters of the woman’s response are painted upside down and backward: “ECCE ANCILLA DNI.”

    Audio Tour Stop 201

    The Annunciation, Jan Van Eyck

    NGA, West Building, M-039, E

    La escenógrafa de Broadway Anna Louizos estudia el dramatismo y el entorno de la pintura de Van Eyck. 
      

    The Annunciation (Spanish)
  • A naked man with ghostly white skin sits upright in a canopied bed set in a narrow room in this tall, vertical painting. Wearing a black cap, he looks to our left in profile toward a skeleton who comes through a door along the left edge of the composition. The man gestures at the skeleton with one hand and, with the other, toward a bag of money held up by a small demon next to the bed to our left. The skeleton wears a white shroud and holds an arrow. A winged angel kneels next to the man in the bed, one hand on the man’s shoulder and the other lifted to gesture at a crucifix hanging in the window over the door. A small devil on the canopy above looks down onto the bed. At the foot of the bed, a man wearing a green robe and headdress drops coins into a sack held by another demon. Three more demons crawl about and hide under the chest. Pieces of armor and weapons lie on the ground to the right in front of a stone ledge in the foreground. Two pieces of clothing drape over the ledge to our left.

    Audio Tour Stop 202

    Death and the Miser, Hieronymus Bosch

    NGA, West Building, M-041, E

    El cineasta Jem Cohen y la directora de la National Gallery of Art, Kaywin Feldman, analizan la intriga y la naturaleza atemporal de la impactante pintura de El Bosco.
     

    Death and the Miser (Spanish)
  • On a tabletop spread with an ivory-white cloth, plates, and white porcelain bowls containing sweets, fruit, olives, and a cooked fowl are arranged around the largest platter, which holds the head, wings, and tail of a peacock stuck into a tall, baked pie, in this horizontal still life painting. The front, left corner of the table is near the lower left corner of the painting, so the tabletop extends off the right side of the composition. The white tablecloth lies over a second cloth underneath, which is only visible along the right edge. The cloth underneath has a leafy, geometric pattern in burgundy red against a lighter, rose-red background. The peacock pie is set near the back of the table, to our right, so it fills the upper right quadrant of the composition. The bird holds a pink rose in its beak. In front of it, near the lower right corner of the painting, a white porcelain bowl painted with teal-green floral and geometric designs holds about ten pieces of pale yellow and blush-red fruit. A pewter plate next to it, to our left, holds dried fruit and baked, stick-like sweets, some covered with white sugar. A pile of salt sits atop a gold, square vessel between the sweets and the peacock pie. Another blue-patterned, white porcelain bowl filled with green olives sits near the back of the table next to a lidded, pewter pitcher with a long spout. Other pewter plates hold a baked fowl, like a small chicken, and, closest to us, a partially cut lemon with its peel curling off the plate. Nuts, more fruit, an ivory-handled knife, bread rolls, and flat biscuits sit on the white cloth among the plates. One glass with a wide stem covered in nubs and a flaring bowl sits near the back, left corner of the table, filled with a pale yellow liquid. An empty glass lies with the upper rim on another pewter plate, to our left. Also on the plate is a bunched up white napkin and a leather case for the knife. The background behind the still life is brown.

    Audio Tour Stop 203

    Still Life with Peacock Pie (Spanish), Pieter Claesz

    NGA, West Building, M-050, E

    La célebre chef Carla Hall examina la amplia variedad de alimentos presentes en la escena del banquete de Claesz.
     

    Still Life with Peacock Pie (Spanish)
  • Shown from about the waist up, a woman with smooth, pale skin sits in a chair facing our right in front of a canvas on an easel in this vertical portrait. She leans onto her right elbow, which rests on the seat back. She turns her face to look at us, lips slightly parted. Her dress has a black bodice and a deep rose-pink skirt and sleeves. She wears a translucent white cap over her hair, which has been tightly pulled back. A stiff, white, plate-like ruff encircles her neck and reaches to her shoulders. She holds a paintbrush in her right hand and clutches about twenty brushes, a wooden paint palette, and a rag in her left hand, at the bottom right of the canvas. The painting behind her shows a man wearing robin's egg-blue and playing a violin.

    Audio Tour Stop 204

    Self-Portrait, Judith Leyster

    NGA, West Building, M-046, E

    La artista Susanna Coffey analiza la vida como artista y los detalles expertos incluidos en el autorretrato de Leyster. 
     

    Self-Portrait, Judith Leyster (Spanish)
  • A nearly nude, muscular man with pale, peachy skin sits in an underground cave among seven male and two female lions in this horizontal painting. The man sits to our right of center with his legs crossed, elbows close to his body with hands clasped by his chest. His head tips back to look up through a small opening above. He has long, wavy, chestnut-brown hair and dark eyes. A white cloth wraps across his hips, and he sits on a scarlet-red swath of fabric draped up over a rock next to him. The nine lions stalk, sit, or lie down around the man. One male lion next to the man, to our left, opens his mouth with his head thrown back, curling tongue extended beyond long fangs. A human skull and other bones are strewn on the dirt ground close to us. The rocky cave curves up around the animals and man to a narrow, round opening showing blue sky above.

    Audio Tour Stop 205

    Daniel in the Lions' Den, Sir Peter Paul Rubens

    NGA, West Building, M-045, W

    Cray Saffoe, curador de grandes felinos en el Zoológico Nacional, examina la representación de los leones de Rubens en un momento cúlmine de dramatismo. 
     

    Daniel in the Lions' Den (Spanish)
  • We hover over a flax-yellow body of water lined with ships to our left and right, which are silhouetted against a moonlit, cloud-veiled sky in this horizontal landscape painting. The horizon comes about a third of the way up the composition. The moon hangs to our left of center in the sky, its light reflecting on the clouds in a bright, hourglass shape to create a tunnel-like effect. The sea below turns from a gold color close to us to pale blue along the horizon. To our left, one ship with gray sails is cut off by the edge of the canvas and another, also with gray sails, is situated farther from us. A small, dark rowboat with two passengers moves between them. Light from the windows in buildings along the distant horizon to our left reflect in the water, and another building, a factory, spouts white flame from its chimney. More dark ships line the waterway to our right, their spiky masts black against the sky. Three flames, one orange between two pale yellow fires, flare in the darkness in front of the ship closest to us. The forms of men shoveling coal, crates, and barges are dark silhouettes against the firelight and smoke. More rowboats float among the boats in the distance. Near the lower right corner of the canvas, a broad, flat fragment of wood floats close to us. The hot orange and black on the right side of the painting contrasts with the silvery gray, light blue, and white that fills much of the rest of the composition. The painting was created with thick, blended brushstrokes throughout, giving the scene a hazy look. The texture of some of the brushstrokes is especially noticeable, as where the moon casts white light onto the water and in the clouds. The artist signed a buoy floating to our left with his initials, “JMWT.”

    Audio Tour Stop 206

    Keelmen Heaving in Coals by Moonlight, Joseph Mallord William Turner

    NGA, West Building, M-057, W

    El ecologista Joel Fodrie del Instituto de Ciencias Marinas de la Universidad de Carolina del Norte y el curador sénior Franklin Kelly analizan la vívida descripción que hace Turner de la industria y el cambio climático en la Inglaterra del siglo XIX.
       

    Keelmen Heaving in Coals by Moonlight (Spanish)
  • We hover over the bottle-green surface of a river as it rushes toward a horseshoe-shaped waterfall that curves away from us in this horizontal landscape painting. The water is white and frothy right in front of us, where the shelf of the riverbed changes levels near the edge of the falls. Across from us, the water is also white where it falls over the edge. A thin, broken rainbow glints in the mist near the upper left corner of the painting and continues its arc farther down, between the falls. The horizon line is just over halfway up the composition. Plum-purple clouds sweep into the composition at the upper corners against a lavender-colored sky. Tiny trees and a few buildings line the shoreline to the left and right in the deep distance.

    Audio Tour Stop 207

    Niagara, Frederic Edwin Church

    NGA, West Building, M-071, S

    Sara Capen del Área de Patrimonio Nacional de las Cataratas del Niágara y Sarah Cash, curadora adjunta de pintura estadounidense y británica, examinan las historias ocultas de los buscadores de libertad en el trasfondo de la pintura que hace Church del paisaje norteamericano. 
      

    Niagara (Spanish)
  • We look onto the side of a rowboat crowded with nine men trying to save a pale, nude young man who flails in the water in front of us as a shark approaches, mouth agape, from our right in this horizontal painting. In the water, the man floats with his chest facing the sky, his right arm overhead and the other stretched out by his side. Extending to our left, his left leg is bent and the right leg is straight, disappearing below the knee. His long blond hair swirls in the water and he arches his back, his wide-open eyes looking toward the shark behind him. To our right, the shark rolls up out of the water with its gaping jaws showing rows of pointed teeth. In the boat, eight of the men have light or tanned complexions, and one man has dark brown skin. The man with brown skin stands at the back center of the boat, and he holds one end of a rope, which falls across the boat and around the upper arm of the man in the water. Another man stands at the stern of the boat, to our right, poised with a long, hooked harpoon over the side of the boat, ready to strike the shark. His long dark hair blows back and he wears a navy-blue jacket with brass buttons, white breeches, blue stockings, and his shoes have silver buckles. Two other men wearing white shirts with blousy sleeves lean over the side of the boat, bracing each other as they reach toward the man in the water. An older, balding man holds the shirt and body of one of this pair and looks on, his mouth open. The other men hold long oars and look into the water with furrowed brows. The tip of a shark’s tail slices through the water to our right of the boat, near the right edge of the canvas. Along the horizon line, which comes three-quarters of the way up the composition, buildings and tall spires line the harbor. The masts of boats at port creates a row of crosses against the light blue sky. Steely gray clouds sweep across the upper left corner of the canvas and the sky lightens to pale, butter yellow at the horizon.

    Audio Tour Stop 208

    Watson and the Shark, John Singleton Copley

    NGA, West Building, M-060-B, S

    El artista Yoan Capote y el curador adjunto de pintura estadounidense y británica Charles Brock analizan las emociones y las historias de la trata transatlántica de esclavos, presente en la escena dramática de Copley.
       

    Watson and the Shark (Spanish)
  • Shown from the knees up, a woman with brown, wrinkled skin, wearing a white blouse, apron, and black skirt is shown in front of a pale gray background in this vertical portrait painting. Straight-backed, she faces and looks at us with her hands resting in her lap. Her wavy, iron-gray hair is parted in the center and pulled back from her face. Her eyebrows are slightly raised, and her face is deeply lined down her cheeks and around her mouth. She wears a heart-shaped brooch with a red stone at its center at her neck and a gold band on her left ring finger. The light coming from our left casts a shadow against the wall to our right. The artist signed and dated the painting in the lower right corner: “A.J. MOTLEY. JR. 1922.”

    Audio Tour Stop 209

    Portrait of My Grandmother, Archibald John Motley Jr.

    NGA, West Building, M-066, W

    Rhoda Matthews, trabajadora social de las Escuelas Públicas del Distrito de Columbia, examina la belleza y la persistencia en el retrato íntimo de la abuela de Motley.
       

    Portrait of My Grandmother (Spanish)
  • A white man in military uniform rides a horse in front of a regiment of five rows of Black troops in this sculpture, which is painted entirely in gold. The artist created a shallow, stage-like space with an arched top so the men are sculpted in three dimensions, though they become more compressed as they move back in space. The men and horse face our right in profile in this view. The man on the horse has a pointed, straight nose and a goatee. He wears a cap with a flat top and narrow brim, a knee-length coat, gloves, and knee-high boots with spurs. He holds a thin sword down by the side of the horse with his right hand and holds the reins of the horse with his left. The horse’s head is pulled upward by the short reins, and its mouth is open around the bit. About twenty soldiers are lined up in rows beyond the horse, and they march in unison. They carry blankets rolled atop knapsacks, canteens, and rifles resting on their right shoulders. However, the details of how their uniforms bunch up around their equipment and the way their caps have been molded and fit is unique to each person. Their ages also vary from young and cleanshaven to bearded, older men. Two men carry furled flags near the back, to our left, and a drummer boy plays at the head of the regiment, to our right. All the men look straight ahead, their lips closed. A woman in a billowing robe floats above them under the arched top of the sculpture with her eyes closed. Her left arm is outstretched, and she holds a laurel branch and poppies close to her body with her right arm. An inscription in the upper right corner is created with raised capital letters: “OMNIA RELINQVIT SERVARE REMPVBLICAM.” A longer inscription is carved into the base along the bottom edge of the memorial, also in all caps: “ROBERT GOVLD SHAW KILLED WHILE LEADING THE ASSVLT ON FORT WAGNER JVLY TWENTY THIRD EIGHTEEN HVNDRED AND SIXTY THREE.” The artist’s signature is inscribed In the lower right corner, in smaller letters: “AVGVTVS SAINT GAVDEN M-D-C-C-C-L X X X X V I I I.”

    Audio Tour Stop 210

    The Shaw 54th Regiment Memorial, Augustus Saint-Gaudens 

    NGA, West Building, M-066, E

    Carl Cruz, descendiente de un sargento del Regimiento 54.° de Massachusetts, analiza la fuerza de la representación que logra Saint-Gaudens de una de las primeras unidades militares de soldados negros que se formaron en el norte durante la Guerra de Secesión, y el legado que perdura hasta nuestros días. 
     

    Shaw Memorial (Spanish)
  • This square portrait shows the head and shoulders of a young woman in front of a spiky bush that fills much of the background except for a landscape view that extends into the deep distance to our right. The woman's body is angled to our right but her face turns to us. She has chalk-white, smooth skin with heavily lidded, light brown eyes, and her pale pink lips are closed. Pale blush highlights her cheeks, and she looks either at us or very slightly away from our eyes. Her brown hair is parted down the middle and pulled back, but tight, lively curls frame her face. Her hair turns gold where the light shines on it. She wears a brown dress, trimmed along the square neckline with gold. The front of the bodice is tied with a blue ribbon, and the lacing holes are also edged with gold. A sheer white veil covers her chest and is pinned at the center with a small gold ball. The bush fills the space around her head with copper-brown, spiky leaves. A river winds between trees and rolling hills in the distance to our right. Trees and a town along the horizon, which comes about halfway up the painting, is pale blue under an ice-blue sky.

    Audio Tour Stop 211

    Ginevra de' Benci, Leonardo da Vinci

    NGA, West Building, M-006, CENTER

    La curadora y jefa de pinturas italianas y españolas Eve Straussman-Pflanzer examina la vida y los amores de una mujer en el centro de un retrato de Da Vinci. 
       

    Ginevra de' Benci (Spanish)
  • Close to us, six people, all nude with light skin, stand or lie intertwined with snakes on a bank of rocks in this horizonal painting. Beyond them, the deep, distant landscape has a brown horse, tiny in scale, headed for a city of stone buildings beneath a vivid blue sky filled with twisting white clouds. The people’s bodies are sinewy and elongated, and their skin is painted in tones of ivory white, warmed with peach highlights and streaked with deep gray shadows. At the center, a man with a white beard and white, curly hair lies back on the charcoal-gray rock with his knees bent and his shins splayed out. With his body angled away from us to our right, he holds the body of a long, silvery-gray snake in his left fist, on our right, down by his hip. The snake curves behind the man’s body and he grips the snake behind its head. The man has high cheekbones and sunken cheeks, and rolls his eyes up and back to look at the snake, whose wide-open mouth nearly touches his hair. To our left, a cleanshaven young man stands with his body facing us but he arches back, holding an arcing snake in his hands. The young man’s right hand, on our left, bends at the elbow so he can grasp the snake’s tail and his other arm stretches straight back, holding the snake’s body as it curls around so its fangs nearly reach the young man’s side. To our right, next to the older man, a second, dark-haired young man lies on the rocks with his head toward us. His feet are on the ground, so we look onto the tops of his thighs. He lies with one hand resting on the ground, overhead. Three people seem to float, feet dangling, alongside the right edge of the painting. The person closest to us looks onto the writhing people in profile, back to us. A second person just beyond also looks to our left. A third head turns the opposite direction and looks off to our right. In the distance, the golden-brown horse is angled away from us, one front leg raised, on a path that moves from behind the rocky outcropping to the far-off town. Nestled in a shallow valley, buildings in the town are mostly painted with rose pink and red walls and smoke-gray roofs. The land dips to a deeper, green valley to our right, lining the horizon that comes two-thirds of the way up the composition. The standing people are outlined against the sapphire-blue sky and knotted, gray and white clouds.

    Audio Tour Stop 212

    Laocoön, El Greco

    NGA, West Building, M-028, N

    La célebre poeta Teri Cross Davis y la curadora de pintura italiana y francesa Gretchen Hirschauer analizan la humanidad y las emociones que revela la representación que hizo El Greco de la leyenda de Laocoonte. 
       

  • Dozens of men with several women and a few children gather in pairs or small groups across a sun-drenched plaza in front of a domed church next to a long, pale pink building in this horizontal painting. The people’s faces and hands we can see have pale, peachy skin. The men wear hats and shin-length capes or jackets over stockings in tones of charcoal gray, olive green, butterscotch yellow, black, and brown. The women wear black capes covering their heads and long, full skirts. The ash-brown plaza has two zones where geometric patterns are picked out in a lighter, oatmeal brown. Three coral-red flagpoles are spaced along the center of the plaza parallel to the two buildings. Each flagpole rests on an olive-green base about a third of the height of the pole. Tables under open umbrellas clustered around the outer two flagpoles display piles of cloth, and a few people gather around the wares. The domed building extends into the scene from the left edge of the painting, and reaches about a third of the way across as it angles away from us. It has a central portal with nested arches, flanked to each side by a pair of slightly smaller, arched portals. Scenes against gold backgrounds appear in the archway of each of the five doors. There is a second level of arches above. The smaller arches to either side are decorated with more scenes of people against gold backgrounds. Four gold horses stand atop the central, lower arch, each with one front and one back hoof raised. The arch behind them is dim, the back side of a stained-glass window. The stone of the arches and front of the building are light brown. The upper arches are lined with pale, slate-gray spires and curling tracery. The three-story pink building sits close by to our right, extending into the distance on the same angle as the church, and as tall as its neighbor. The lowest level is a series of open, pointed arches. The second level is also a row of arches, but more closely spaced. People walk and stand under both covered walkways. The top half of the building has a carnation-pink façade with seven windows evenly spaced across its width. The central window is surrounded by carved stone ornament. Along the right edge of the painting and closer to us than the large buildings is the corner of a two-story building. The lower level is in shadow under a sloping awning, creating a merchant’s stall, and the second level has a rounded, arched window. One person stands at the front corner of the roof and looks down into the square. In the narrow gap between the row of buildings to our left and the smaller structure to our right is a winged lion atop a tall column. Beyond that is sparkling blue water with several masted ships and long, narrow gondolas. The sky above has thin white clouds against a pale blue sky. The artist signed the lower left, “A.C.F.”

    Audio Tour Stop 213

    The Square of Saint Mark's, Venice, Canaletto

    NGA, West Building, M-031, E

    El fotógrafo Sam Youkilis y la curadora y jefa de pinturas italianas y españolas Eve Straussman-Pflanzer analizan la monumental representación que logró Canaletto de la Venecia del siglo XVIII y cómo se la compara con la actual. 
       

    The Square of Saint Mark's, Venice (Spanish)
  • A woman and two children, all with pale skin and flushed cheeks, sit together in a landscape in this round painting. The woman takes up most of the composition as she sits with her right leg, to our left, tucked under her body. Her other leg, on our right, is bent so the foot rests on the ground, and that knee angles up and out to the side. She wears a rose-pink dress under a topaz-blue robe, and a finger between the pages of a closed book holds her place. Her brown hair is twisted away from her face. She has delicate features and her pink lips are closed. She looks and leans to our left around a nude young boy who half-sits and half-stands against her bent leg. The boy has blond hair and pudgy, toddler-like cheeks and body. The boy reaches his right hand, on our left, to grasp the tall, thin cross held by the second young boy, who sits on the ground next to the pair. This second boy has darker brown hair and wears a garment resembling animal fur. The boy kneels facing the woman and looks up at her and the blond boy. The trio sits on a flat, grassy area in front of a body of water painted light turquoise. Mountains in the deep distance are pale azure blue beneath a nearly clear blue sky.

    Audio Tour Stop 214

    The Alba Madonna, Raphael

    NGA, West Building, M-020, S

    La curadora de pintura italiana y francesa Gretchen Hirschauer examina la humilde representación de personajes bíblicos en esta monumental pintura de Rafael. 
       

    The Alba Madonna (Spanish)
  • Two women with pale skin look out at us from the other side of a rectangular window opening with a shadowy interior behind them in this vertical painting. On our right, in the lower third of the composition, one young woman leans toward us over her left arm, which rests along the window ledge. She bends her right arm and props her chin on her fist. She looks at us with dark brown eyes under dark brows. She has shiny chestnut-brown hair with a strawberry-red bow on the right side of her head, to our left. She has a straight nose, and her full pink lips curve up in a smile. She wears a gossamer-white dress with a wide neckline trimmed in dark gray, with another red bow on the front of her chest. Her voluminous sleeves are pushed back to her elbows. To our left, a second woman peeks around a partially opened shutter. She is slightly older, and she stands next to the first woman with her body facing us. She tilts her head and also gazes at us with dark eyes under dark brown brows. She has dark brown hair covered by an oyster-white shawl. She holds the shawl up with her right hand to cover the bottom half of her face. Her mouth is hidden but her eyes crinkle as if in a smile. Her left arm bends at the elbow as she grasps the open shutter. She also wears a white shirt pushed back to her elbows, and a rose-pink skirt. The frame of the window runs parallel to the sides and bottom of the canvas. The room behind them is black in shadow.

    Audio Tour Stop 215

    Two Women at a Window, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo

    NGA, West Building, M-034, E

    La curadora y jefa de pinturas italianas y españolas Eve Straussman-Pflanzer analiza la intriga que rodea esta llamativa pintura de Bartolomé Esteban Murillo. 
       

    Two Women at a Window (Spanish)
  • We look slightly down onto a woman dressed in golden yellows, sitting in a pale green chair, with a nude child sitting in her lap as they both gaze into a mirror in this vertical portrait painting. Both the people have pale, peachy skin. The chair is angled to our left so the woman’s knees and child cant down toward the lower left corner of the composition, and the woman leans onto the arm closer to us. The chair is painted mint green and the rose-pink upholstery is visible on the seat and a corner behind the woman’s shoulder. To our right, the woman’s vibrant, copper-colored hair is pulled loosely to the back of her head. She has a rounded nose, flushed cheeks, and her full, coral-pink lips are closed. Her long dress has a low, U-shaped neckline. The fabric shimmers from pale, cucumber green to light sunshine yellow. The sleeves of the dress split over the shoulder and a second long, goldenrod-yellow sleeve falls from her elbow off the bottom edge of the canvas. An oversized sunflower, larger than the woman’s face, is affixed to her dress near her left shoulder, closer to us. She looks with dark eyes down toward the small, gold-rimmed mirror she holds in her right hand, farther from us. The child also holds the handle of the mirror with both hands, and in the reflection, the child looks back at us with dark eyes, a button nose, and pink lips. The child’s hair in the reflection is the same copper color as the woman’s, but the child on her lap has blond, shoulder-length hair. The woman rests one hand on the child’s left shoulder, closer to us. The child has a rounded belly and smooth, rosy limbs. The woman and child are reflected in a second mirror hanging on the wall alongside them, opposite us. Their reflections are very loosely painted. The wall behind the pair is sage green across the top and it shifts to fawn brown across the bottom. Brushstrokes are visible throughout, especially in the woman’s dress and hair, and are more blended in the bodies and faces. The artist signed the painting in the lower right corner, “Mary Cassatt.”

    Audio Tour Stop 216

    Woman with a Sunflower, Mary Cassatt

    NGA, West Building, M-086, E

    La artista María Berrio y la asistente de curaduría Nikki Georgopulos analizan las relaciones y los símbolos presentes en la pintura intimista de Mary Cassatt.
       

    Woman with a Sunflower (Spanish)
  • A man with pale peach skin and dark hair wears a military uniform and stands in front of a desk in this vertical portrait painting. He nearly fills the composition so seems close to us, and he looks directly at us. His body is angled slightly to our left and he tucks his right hand, on our left, flat against his chest between the buttons of his jacket. His navy-blue waistcoat is white along the front where it is fastened with brass buttons along his chest. The jacket has red cuffs, gold epaulets on the shoulders, and three medals affixed to the chest. White britches end just below the knee, and white stockings covering his calves are wrinkled at the ankle above black shoes with brass buckles. A candle burns low in a lamp on an ornately carved and gilded desk behind the man. Books and papers are piled on the desk to our right. More papers and a thin sword rest on a chair in front of the desk to our right. The chair is also carved and gilded, and is upholstered with scarlet-red fabric decorated with gold bees. The legs of the chair push back the forest-green carpet underfoot. A tall clock stands on the wall opposite us and reads 4:13. A few capital letters are written on a scroll of paper on the chair, “COD.” The artist’s name is also written as if printed on a scroll of paper on the floor behind the desk to our left: “LVD.CI.DAVID OPVS 1812.”

    Audio Tour Stop 217

    The Emperor Napoleon in His Study at the Tuileries, Jacques-Louis David

    NGA, West Building, M-056, S

    El curador adjunto de pintura francesa Aaron Wile examina la creación de un mito en el retrato de Napoleón de Jacques-Louis David.
       

    The Emperor Napoleon in His Study at the Tuileries (Spanish)
  • A woman wearing a sheer white blouse, short red and gold vest, and full-legged, patterned pants cinched below the knee lies back and looks at us with hooded eyes in this horizontal painting. Her shoulders lean back against an oversized white pillow, up along the right edge of the composition. Her body tips toward us, and her knees are bent so her feet are together in the lower left corner. Her right arm rests along the side of her body, and she props herself up with her other arm. That hand has a gold band on the ring finger. Her light skin is tinged with green on her face. Her head rolls slightly away from us so she looks down her cheeks at us with slitted, dark eyes through heavily lined lids. She has dark brows, and her rose-red lips are parted. The angle of her head creates a slight double chin. Gold hoops with dangling fringe or chains hang from her ears, and she wears three strands of dark beads around her neck. Her black hair is plaited in a thick braid that comes down over her left shoulder, closer to us. A cap made of gold-colored disks and red fringe sits on the far side of her head. The woman’s clothing is more loosely painted. We may see her breasts and pink nipples through her sheer, silver-gray tunic, which has long, voluminous sleeves. The short, bolero-style vest is strawberry red and gold, with narrow cap sleeves. A sea-blue sash around her waist is striped with overlapping burnt-orange and black lines. Her pants have flaring legs gathered with a button just below her knees. The pattern is of sage-green circles with swipes of rust-red in the center, suggesting flowers and vines against a black background. Her knees are spread open so her feet can barely be contained within the composition. Her teal-green slip-on shoes have the suggestion of flowers painted with dabs of yellow, black, and red, and a pompom atop each toe box. A red and gold cushion sits just beyond her feet. On it is a tray of oranges and an emerald-green jug. The pillow the woman leans on is propped against a short section of wall or piece of furniture painted with a border of roses. The room opens up beyond this, and has a turquoise and brown rug leading back to a cranberry-red sofa, on which a gray piece of fabric has been draped. The wall above is patterned with yellow and green diamonds and pink flowers against a laurel-green background. The artist signed the lower left, “A. Renoir. 70.”

    Audio Tour Stop 218

    Odalisque, Auguste Renoir

    NGA, West Building, M-081, W

    La novelista Laila Lalami y la curadora y jefa de pintura francesa Mary Morton analizan las historias y los legados que rodean el retrato imaginario que hizo Renoir de una mujer argelina.

    Odalisque (Spanish)
  • Audio Tour Stop

    Woman Viewed from Behind (Visit to a Museum), Edgar Degas

    El responsable de protección Jerry Folley y la curadora de pintura francesa del siglo XIX, Kimberly A. Jones, hablan sobre la pintura que hizo Degas en torno a la observación de obras de arte y la experimentación de una sensación de descubrimiento. 
       

    Woman Viewed from Behind (Spanish)
  • Audio Tour Stop

    The Old Musician, Edouard Manet

    El defensor de vivienda Jesse Rabinowitz de la organización sin fines de lucro Miriam’s Kitchen y la curadora y jefa de pintura francesa Mary Morton analizan la presencia de personas marginadas en el centro de la monumental pintura de Manet. 
       

    The Old Musician (Spanish)
  • Audio Tour Stop

    The Greek Slave, Hiram Powers

    El historiador Ka’mal McClarin del Servicio de Parques Nacionales hace un análisis del impacto público de la escultura de Hiram Powers y cómo era una de las obras favoritas del activista Frederick Douglass.
       

    The Greek Slave (Spanish)
  • Audio Tour Stop

    Lorenzo de' Medici

    La conservadora sénior y jefa de conservación de objetos Shelley Sturman profundiza en torno a los detalles que revela el estudio de materiales de este impactante busto del 
       

    Lorenzo de' Medici (Spanish)
  • Audio Tour Stop

    The Little Dancer Aged Fourteen

    La bailarina de ballet profesional Tara Hutton estudia las alegrías y las dificultades que quedan al descubierto en la escultura de Degas de una joven bailarina de la Opera de Paris en el siglo XIX.
       

    The Little Dancer Aged Fourteen (Spanish)