Nanny and Child

1877/1878

Eva Gonzalès

Painter, French, 1849 - 1883

A young woman sits and a young girl stands at an open, wide, vine-covered gate in front of a park in this horizontal painting. Both people have pale, peachy skin. The woman sits at the center of the opening with her body facing us, and she looks at or toward us with dark eyes under dark eyebrows. She tips her head slightly to her left, our right, and her brown hair has been pulled up under an ivory-white hat with a dark feather that curves over her hair toward her ears. Like the rest of the painting, her features are loosely painted but her pink lips are closed. Her pale shell-pink shawl flares over her shoulders to her elbows, and is fastened with a black ribbon or tie at her neck. A touch of black at her waist suggests she wears a black sash, and her full skirt falls in layered tiers to the ground. Her hands rest in her lap, and she holds long-stemmed flowers with red, baby-blue, and butter-yellow blooms. Next to the woman and to our left, the girl stands facing our left in profile with her hands on the trellised gate, which has swung away from us, into the park. Her blond hair is held back with a black headband and she looks down, her face turned slightly away. Her long-sleeved, loosely fitting, slate-blue jumper has pale blue pinstripes and comes to her knees. She wears white stockings, and her black boots come up over her ankles. An open umbrella with a curved wooden handle rests upside down on the ground to our right of the woman. The interior is deep turquois blue and the exterior is parchment brown. The park is painted with tones of pale caramel brown for the ground, and sage green and tan for the trees. Tree trunks and branches are painted with a few lines in brown, and there is a hedge of pine-green bushes beyond the gate to our right. Sunlight filters through the trees to create dappled shadows on the ground. The artist signed the work as if she had written her name along the bottom rail of the gate door, near the lower left corner of the painting: “Eva Gonzalèz.”

Media Options

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Born into a wealthy Parisian family, Eva Gonzalès focused on the experiences of upper-class women, drawing from her own observations. This painting presents a familiar scene of domestic life: a nanny tending to her charge. Seated in a garden on a lazy summer day, the nanny seems distracted. Like the parasol lying at her feet, her responsibilities are briefly forgotten. The little girl plays nearby, also lost in her own world. Is Gonzalès drawing parallels between the two?

On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 89

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Chester Dale Fund

  • Dimensions

    overall: 65 × 81.4 cm (25 9/16 × 32 1/16 in.)
    framed: 87.95 × 103.51 × 9.53 cm (34 5/8 × 40 3/4 × 3 3/4 in.)

  • Accession

    2006.72.1

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

The artist [1849-1883], Paris; (her estate sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 20 February 1885, no. 54). Lanvin, Paris, at least in 1932.[1] Acquired 1994 by Simon Rosenberg; purchased 10 July 2006 through (Brame & Lorenceau, Paris) by NGA.
[1] According to the provenance from Brame & Lorenceau. This is possibly the fashion designer Jeanne Lanvin. At least some of her collection was inherited into the Polignac family, into which her daughter had married.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1878

  • Exposition nationale des beaux-arts (Salon), Palais des Champs-Elysées, Paris, 1878, no. 1046.

1885

  • L'exposition-rétrospective d'Eva Gonzalès en 1885, galleries of the journal La Vie Moderne, Paris, 1885, no. 62.

1928

  • Portraits et figures de femmes. Ingres à Picasso. Exposition au bénéfice de la Société des Amis du Musée du Luxembourg. La Renaissance, Paris, 1928, no. 85.

1932

  • Eva Gonzalès 1849-1883, Galerie Marcel Bernheim, Paris, 1932, no. 5.

1949

  • L'Enfance, Galerie Charpentier, Paris, 1949, no. 106, as Dans le jardin.

1950

  • Eva Gonzalès, Galerie Alfred Daber, Paris, 1950, no. 9.

1959

  • Eva Gonzalès 1849-1883, Galerie Daber, Paris, 1959, no. 6, repro.

1993

  • Les Femmes Impressionnistes: Mary Cassatt, Eva Gonzalès, Berthe Morisot, Musée Marmottan, Paris, 1993, no. 41, repro.

2008

  • Woman Impressionists: Berthe Morisot, Mary Cassatt, Eva Gonzalès, Marie Bracquemond, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt; California Palace of the Legion of Honor, The Fine Arts Museusm of San Francisco, 2008, unnumbered catalogue, repro.

2011

  • Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; The National Art Center, Tokyo; Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, 2011, no. 22, repro.

Bibliography

1932

  • Bayle, Paul. "Éva Gonzalès." La Renaissance 6 (June 1932): 114-115, repro.

1949

  • Lecuyer, Raymond. "A La Galerie Charpentier: L'Enfance". France Illustration 194-220 (June 1949):16, repro (as Dans le Jardin).

1950

  • Roger-Marx, Claude. "Un peintre de bonheur: Eva Gonzalès." Le Figaro Littéraire (18 March 1950): 8.

  • Roger-Marx, Claude. "Eva Gonzalès." Arts: Beaux-Arts, Littérature, Spectacles(July, 1950): 8.

1990

  • Sainsaulieu, Marie-Caroline and Jacques de Mons. Eva Gonzalès 1849-1883 Etude critique et catalogue raisonné. Paris, 1990: 202-203, no. 91, repro.

1994

  • Grant, Carol Jane. "Eva Gonzalès (1849-1883): An examination of the artist's style and subject matter." Ph.D. dissertation, Ohio State University, 1994: 44,45,168,169, 190, 191, pl. XVII, x, 344.

2006

  • Jones, Kimberly. "Eva Gonzalès, Nanny and Child." Bulletin / National Gallery of Art, no. 35 (Fall 2006): 22-23, repro.

2016

  • Manœuvre, Laurent. Les pionnières: femmes et impressionnistes. Rouen, 2016: 163,165.

2017

  • Caso, Ángeles. Grandes Maestras Mujeres en el arte occidental. Renacimiento-Siglo XIX. Ovideo, 2017: 86, fig.. 57, 292.

Inscriptions

lower left: Eva Gonzalès

Wikidata ID

Q20188833

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