Across the Nation | National Gallery of Art

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6th and Constitution Ave NW
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Sculpture Garden Extended Hours

Open late until 8:00 p.m. on select nights
Starting June 3
Exhibitions & Events
Featured event:

Block Party
Join us June 6
Art & Artists
Open Call

Artists Reimagining the Collection
Meet the 50 makers selected from more than 1,600 submissions

Open 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.

Visit
Open today 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.
Admission is always free

6th and Constitution Ave NW
Washington, DC 20565

Sculpture Garden Extended Hours

Open late until 8:00 p.m. on select nights
Starting June 3
Exhibitions & Events
Featured event:

Block Party
Join us June 6
Art & Artists
Open Call

Artists Reimagining the Collection
Meet the 50 makers selected from more than 1,600 submissions

Across the Nation is a national program advancing the National Gallery’s founding mission to serve all Americans by sharing the nation’s art collection beyond Washington, DC. Across the Nation enables museums across the United States to present significant works from the National Gallery’s collection at no cost to participating institutions, while fostering deep, collaborative partnerships in education, conservation, scholarship, and programming. Through program cycles and a growing network of partner museums, Across the Nation expands public access to art, strengthens museums across the country, and ensures millions of people can engage meaningfully with the national collection in their own communities.

The Across the Nation program is made possible through the generous support of the Mitchell P. Rales Family Foundation.

Alaska

The Anchorage Museum
On view now

A single black line swells and tapers as it curves from the upper left corner of this white canvas across to the right edge, and back to near the lower left corner in this abstract painting. The line makes a short, bracket-like form at the upper left before the large curve, like the belly of a capital D, spans the rest of the height of the canvas. — Georgia O'Keeffe, Winter Road I, 1963, oil on canvas, Gift of The Georgia O'Keeffe Foundation, © Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1995.4.1

This painting displays three horizontal rectangles stacked on top of each other against a red background. They are separated by thin strips of red. The top rectangle is gray, with some of the red tones from the background seeming to show through. The two rectangles below are white. The shapes have soft, blurred edges that blend with the red background. — Mark Rothko, Untitled, 1958, oil and acrylic on canvas, Gift of The Mark Rothko Foundation, Inc., 1986.43.150

Nancy Graves, Consequence, 1982, oil on canvas, Corcoran Collection (Gift of the Friends of the Corcoran), 2015.19.181

Colorado

Denver Art Museum
On view now

Shown from the lap up against a dark background, a pale-skinned woman wearing a black dress looks out at us in this vertical portrait. Soft light coming from our left highlights her oval face, the peach blush on her cheeks, and her crisp white collar, cap, and cuffs. Her brown hair is pulled back under the cap that flares slightly over her ears and the wide, lace-trimmed collar covers her shoulders. She has dark eyes, a straight nose, and her pink lips are slightly parted. Her left arm, on our right, rests on a table covered with a rose-red patterned carpet next to two pieces of fruit, perhaps apples, and a book fastened with metal clasps. She rests her other arm on the arm of the wooden chair and holds a deep pink carnation the same color as the carpet. She wears a ring on the third finger of each hand. The artist signed the work with black paint against the dark background near the upper right corner: “Rembrandt. f.1656.” — Rembrandt van Rijn, A Woman Holding a Pink, 1656, oil on canvas, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1937.1.75

Shown from the waist up, a man dressed in fine clothing looks out at us from against a deeply shadowed background in this vertical portrait painting. The man’s pale, peachy skin has a warm undertone that glows in a stark light source from our left. His body and face are angled to our right, and he cuts his dark eyes back to look at us under raised brows. He has a rounded, bulbous nose, and a wispy golden-brown goatee frames his closed pink lips. Shadows on his cheeks and jowls suggest soft flesh and a five o’clock shadow. Wiry brown hair curls out over his temples and down to the nape of his neck beneath a green, gold, orange, and burgundy-red skullcap. A soft brown beret rests on top of his skullcap tipped at an angle away from us. A teardrop-shaped pearl earring hangs from a gold setting in the ear we can see. He wears a cream-white tunic with gold and brown detailing along the hemlines. Over that is a dark brown, vest-like garment. The sleeves are slashed so the outer fabric is eggplant purple, and the inner slashes are golden yellow. A red cloth drapes over his left arm, farther from us, and that hand rests on a gold, spiraling shaft. A dark sash may be tied around his waist, and it seems that his other hand rests against his hip, to our left. The lower half of his chest and the background fall into deep shadow, though, so some the details there are difficult to make out. The painting is signed and dated in dark letters in a shaded area, so is nearly invisible in the lower center right; it reads, “Rembrandt f. 1650.” — Dutch 17th Century, Portrait of Rembrandt, 1650, oil on canvas, Widener Collection, 1942.9.70

Connecticut

New Britain Museum of American Art
On view now

This painting shows various pieces of fruit arranged in a thin white bowl, including apples, peaches, green and purple grapes, cherries, pears, and plums. Some of the fruit is overflowing from the bowl, and rests on the white surface below, surrounding the bowl. Many of the pieces of fruit have thin stems attached to them, and some have thick green leaves. Behind the fruit, the background is dark brown, and there is a tan arched border around the painting. — Robert Seldon Duncanson, Fruit Still Life, c. 1849, oil on canvas, Corcoran Collection (Museum Purchase through a gift from the Reserve for Purchase of Works of Art), 2014.136.106

Four women with pale, peach skin, wearing long white dresses, stand or sit on a sunny beach in this wide, horizontal painting. People and carriages are painted as hazy gray silhouettes spread along the beach in the distance. The silhouettes span the left half of the horizon, which comes halfway up the painting. To our right, the water is a pale blue with loose strokes of white, light gray, and ice blue to suggest waves and surf. On the pale sand, three of the women sit close to us, huddled under two broad parasols on a brown blanket. Their bodies face the water, and their features and clothing are loosely painted. The woman closest to us has a white dress with lapis-blue bows down the front and a blue sash tied at her back. Her flat, round, straw-yellow hat is tied onto her head with a black bow. She wears a yellow glove on the hand we can see, and she props one parasol over her far shoulder. The inside of the parasol is bright blue, the outside cream white. The other two women sit together under the second parasol, also cream colored. In the center of the trio, the woman wears an olive-green shawl or wrap, and her reddish-brown hair might be loose over her shoulders. The third seated woman wears a bright red wrap and a dark hat. A bit behind these women, a fourth stands looking toward them or the water. She also wears a long white dress under a vivid red jacket and a small brown cap. She holds her skirt with one hand and touches her hat with another gloved hand. Another loosely painted form farther back along the beach appears to be a woman wearing black and holding a white parasol. The artist signed and dated the painting with the location in the bottom right corner: “W. H. 1874 East Hampton L. I.” — Winslow Homer, East Hampton Beach, Long Island, 1874, oil on canvas, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 2012.89.2

Idaho

Boise Art Museum
On view now

This painting displays two large rectangular blocks stacked on top of each other. The top section is yellow, while the bottom is black, with softly blurred edges and a small line of green where the two meet. The bottom rectangle is larger than the top rectangle. The rectangles are surrounded by a border of red and more hints of green at the bottom of the black rectangle. The paint has been applied unevenly in areas, creating some slight differences in color within the different sections. — Mark Rothko, Untitled, 1950, pigmented hide glue and oil on canvas, Gift of The Mark Rothko Foundation, Inc., 1986.43.159

This abstract, square canvas is filled with rectangular and square fields of muted peach, vivid orange, orchid purple, mauve pink, and mint green. The fields are loosely formed, and the edges appear blurred. A long, peach rectangle across the top edge is bordered narrowly by marigold orange. Below this and near the center of the painting, a square-shaped area is filled in with traffic cone-orange, scrawled lines against frosty green. Still farther down are a narrower dash of peach bordered by muted turquoise and then a very pale green, sideways marquise shape bordered by grass green. Fields in mostly shades of pink and purple fill in the rest of the composition, which is painted with mostly blended strokes. — Mark Rothko, Untitled, 1948, oil on canvas, Gift of The Mark Rothko Foundation, Inc., 1986.43.120

Berthe Morisot, Young Woman with a Straw Hat, 1884, oil on canvas, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection, 1970.17.49

This painting is a portrait of a person with dark hair styled neatly in an updo with soft waves over their forehead. They have a serious expression, with pale skin, high cheekbones, deep-set eyes, dark eyebrows, and pink lips in a neutral expression. The person is wearing a pale blue garment with a vee-neck and slightly puffed sleeves, and they are turned slightly to the left. On the right, there are deep shadows on the side of their face and their neck. The background is a mixture of brown and gray shades with visible brushstrokes. — Thomas Eakins, Harriet Husson Carville (Mrs. James G. Carville), 1904, oil on canvas, Gift of Elizabeth O. Carville, 1976.27.1

Iowa

Figge Art Museum
On view now

A nude woman with pale, rosy skin lies across a grassy field in front of a pool fed by water from a rocky outcropping, with a town in the distance in this horizontal painting. The woman lies back against a scarlet-red garment, presumably a dress, bunched under her shoulders, with her head to our left. Her face turns to us, but she cuts her eyes to our right, her lids nearly closed. She has a wide face, a pointed chin, and her thin, rose-pink lips are closed. Her blond hair is pulled back and gossamer fabric, nearly invisible, creates a veil reaching her arched eyebrows. She rests her head against her raised right arm, closest to the grass on which she lies, and her other arm rests along the side of her body. Her ankles are together but her knees fall slightly apart. More sheer fabric wraps across her hips. She wears a black cord tied in a bow around her neck and a longer, thick, gold chain necklace with a pendant with a ruby-red stone and pearls. On her left hand, along her body, she wears a crimson-red and gold, jeweled bracelet and three gold rings with red and blue jewels on her thumb, pointer, and pinkie fingers. The grass beneath her is painted with emerald-green plants and leaves against a dark, forest-green background. Two partridges walk in the grass, one pecking at the ground, near the lower right corner of the composition. An ash-gray tree trunk spans the height of the painting near the birds, and a bow and garnet-red, long, box-like quiver of arrows hang from a branch. Beyond the band of grass, to our left, is a pool being fed from a stream of water coming from the rocky, cave-like opening above. The pool is lined with more dark green trees and bushes. In the distance, to our right, is a town with slate-gray buildings with burgundy-red roofs. The sky above deepens from pale, sunshine yellow along the horizon to shell pink to watery blue. A rectangular plaque in the upper left corner reads, “FONTIS NYMPHA SACRI SOM NVM NE RVMP QVIESCO.” On the rock face of the cave nearby is a tiny silhouette of a serpent with folded wings holding a ring in its mouth. — Lucas Cranach the Elder, The Nymph of the Spring, after 1537, oil on panel, Gift of Clarence Y. Palitz, 1957.12.1

Set in a mountainous landscape, a curvy, robust woman wounded with a short slash across her chest reclines into the arms of an older, bearded man as second, cleanshaven man, at the lower left corner, holds an arrow tip to his own chest in this horizontal painting. The people have pale, peachy skin but the older man has a more tan complexion. The reclining woman at the center of the composition, Dorinda, lies back with her left cheek pressed against that shoulder. Her left elbow, on our right, is propped up at shoulder height, perhaps on a rock, and she holds up her other arm alongside her body, her palm facing out at the younger man in the lower left, Silvio. A string of pearls sits like a crown on Dorinda’s blond, curling hair. The skin of her face is pale but her eyelids and cheeks are deeply flushed. She looks down along her body toward Silvio with dark eyes, and her slack lips are parted. Her flowing white blouse falls off her shoulders and bunches up across her chest, almost covering the bleeding wound on the center of her chest. Her wine-red skirt glints in the light, suggesting it is silk, and is bunched up around her bare feet. Silvio has flowing dark brown hair and pointed features. He is shown from the waist up, leaning toward and looking up at the wounded woman. His hair falls loosely over his shoulders, and his pink lips are parted. He holds a brown wrap over a blousy white shirt with his right hand, closer to us, and holds up the point of an arrow to his chest with the other hand. The older man, to our right, has a wiry gray beard and ash-gray hair curling around his ears. Wrinkles line his forehead, the corners of his eyes, and the sides of his mouth. His dark brown robe nearly swallows his body. He looks down toward Silvio as he supports Dorinda. A gold and black quiver of arrows and a silver, crescent-shaped horn with red tassels sit near the lower right corner, near Dorinda’s elbow. A tree grows right behind the man. The rest of the mountainous landscape is hazy in the deep distance. — Louis Vallée, Silvio with the Wounded Dorinda, 165(1)?, oil on canvas, Gift of Patricia Bauman and the Honorable John Landrum Bryant, 2000.114.1

Shown from the hips up, a man with peachy skin and long, brown curly hair and goatee stands in front of a window opening onto a moonlit sky in this vertical portrait painting. His body faces our right and his right fist, closer to us, rests on his hip so his elbow juts toward us. Wearing a dark, wide brimmed hat, he turns his head to look over his right shoulder directly at us. His eyebrows are slightly raised over brown eyes, and he has a bumpy nose, a slight double chin, and pale pink lips that curve in the suggestion of a smile. He wears a golden yellow jacket with buttons along the sleeve we can see. The wrist of the jacket is trimmed with a wide, lace-edged cuff and a similarly wide, lace-trimmed collar lies over the armor breastplate that covers his chest. A marigold-orange sash is tied around the breastplate as well near the waist, and the goldenrod-yellow jacket drapes from a portly belly over his hips. He stands in front of a gray wall pierced with a rectangular window. The view has a veil of dark gray clouds over the moonlit sky. — Frans Hals, Portrait of a Member of the Haarlem Civic Guard, c. 1636/1638, oil on canvas, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1937.1.68

Sir Anthony van Dyck, Catherine Howard, Lady d'Aubigny, c. 1638, oil on canvas, Widener Collection, 1942.9.95

We float high above the land, looking across rolling hills toward a shimmering, aquamarine-blue body of water to our left and towns peppered along taller mountains to our right, beneath an incoming storm in this horizontal painting. The horizon comes about halfway up the painting. Only upon closer inspection does one discover dozens of tiny men and women scattered in groups or individually across the landscape. Closest to us but still tiny in scale, at the lower center, a man wearing a scarlet-red tunic and dark pants chops down a tree as another man wearing navy blue walks away from us. A man snoozes on the grass nearby and another squats in the protection of a hollowed out tree, pants down, in the lower left corner of the painting. The rolling, light brown hills angle away from us to our left. Atop a hill to our left, a tall frame holds up two flaming wheels. At its foot, a person wearing robes kneels and looks up, arms raised, at the wheel, which is on fire. Three people, one wearing armor, lie nearby and others run away. A structure on a rocky outcropping nearby is also on fire, and black smoke billows skyward. In the harbor below, at the center of the composition, two ships tip wildly in the water. People walk and work in pairs and groups through the rest of the landscape, including a bustle of activity around a wooden ship being built to our right. Travelers on foot and on horseback follow a winding road along the harbor toward a castle on the far promontory. Beyond that lies a ship-filled port town, and, across a drawbridge on at the far right, a walled city in the hazy distance. Clouds rolling across the left half of the painting are charcoal gray, almost black. To our right, patches of bright blue sky peek through a thin screen of white clouds. — Antwerp 16th Century, Matthys Cock, The Martyrdom of Saint Catherine, c. 1540, oil on plywood transferred from panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1952.2.18

This painting shows a standing man with light skin, long curly dark hair, a mustache, and goatee. He is wearing ornate silver armor and a white ruffled collar. The overlapping plates of the armor are accented in gold at the edges. His body is turned to the left, but he faces us. His left hand holds a decorated silver helmet with red plumes. To the left is another person, partially shown in shadow, who appears to be kneeling. This person has dark skin and short hair, wears a striped garment, and has a metallic chain around their neck. They are looking up at the armored man. The background features red drapery with a glimpse of an exterior scene on the bottom right, which reveals dark mountains and a pale-yellow sky. — Anonymous Artist, Mattias de' Medici, c. 1660, oil on canvas, Gift of Ursula H. Baird and Sally H. Dieke in memory of their grandmother, Constance Cary Harrison, 1950.10.1

This painting depicts a woman facing the right, either standing or seated. She has fair skin, pink cheeks, pale eyebrows, blue eyes, and pink lips in a neutral expression. Her hair is curly and voluminous, styled back in two bunches with ringlets falling over her shoulders. It is gray towards the roots, but the ends appear to be brown. She is wearing a luxurious, gold-colored satin gown with draped white sleeves and a white undershirt peeking out at the neckline. The skirts bunch around her, obscuring her lower body. A single strand of pearls adorns her neck, and we see one dangling pearl earring. In one hand, she holds a blue fabric by her side. In the other, she is holding a small dish shaped like an oyster shell that catches a small stream of water that comes from the top right of the painting, seeming to emerge from a dark rocky shape on the right side. On the right, the background includes dark green foliage under a cloudy blue-and-gray sky. — Gerard Soest, Lady Borlase, c. 1672/1675, oil on canvas, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Gordon Gray, 1977.63.1

A tall goblet made with a spiraling nautilus shell on a gold and silver stem, a blue and white lidded, porcelain bowl, an orange, a cut lemon, and a bunched up, woven rug are gathered on a tabletop in front of a black background in this vertical still life painting. Light falling on the objects from our left contrasts sharply with the deep shadow beyond, which makes some details difficult to make out. The objects might be gathered on a silver tray. At the center of the composition, the flagon is made with a shimmering, ivory-colored nautilus shell with its wide opening facing up. The stem is made of gold bands coiling around a silver figurine, which is nearly lost in shadow. To our right, a white porcelain bowl has a rounded bottom and tall sides. It is painted with blue designs around a raised relief showing two people in crimson-red and harvest-gold garments. A utensil sits in the bowl to our right, and the lid, which has a finial in the shape of an animal, rests angled upward, partially in the bowl and partially on the stem of that utensil. A translucent, cylindrical knife handle protrudes toward us, angled to our right, in front of the bowl. A rug with a geometric pattern of rust red, tan, and pine green is bunched next to the bowl, along the right side of the painting. To our left of the nautilus cup, an orange with a stem and green leaves sits next to a bright, glistening lemon at the foot of the cup. Between the two pieces of fruit, the vivid yellow lemon rind has been peeled into a long, curling strip that curves off the front edge of the table. — Anonymous Artist, Still Life with Nautilus Cup, 1665/1670, oil on canvas, Gift of Robert H. and Clarice Smith, 1974.109.1

A profusion of flowers mostly in ruby red, bright white, and flamingo pink are gathered in a bronze-colored urn, set on a stone ledge against a dark background in this vertical still life painting. A band of flowers reaching from the lower left to the upper right draw the eye, and are made up of a pink rose at the bottom under a white rose, a white-and-red streaked tulip, and a crimson-red poppy near the upper right. Other flowers include a sprig of pale, nearly white lilac to the left, sapphire-blue morning glories, golden stalks of wheat, and green leaves interspersed throughout. The urn has a fluted, flaring foot. Upon closer inspection we find that the foot must belong to a much larger vessel, for a terracotta-colored person reclining next to a stylized fish emerges from behind the flowers at the upper left. An ivory-white butterfly with an orange spot on each wing alights on the tulip, whose petals are spread wide. A snail with a marmalade-orange shell with a thin, shiny, black spiral crawls along the ledge to our right, and on the stone ledge to our left, an earwig eats a honey-yellow caterpillar. The flowers and insects are brightly lit from our left, and the chocolate-brown background is swallowed in shadow. A partially legible inscription in the lower right reads, “Kouwe be h.” — Philip van Kouwenbergh, Flowers in a Vase, c. 1700, oil on canvas, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. William Draper Blair, 1976.26.2

This painting shows a fleet of sailing ships on choppy water. The horizon is low, and ship sails and masts are visible far in the distance. Closest to us, five large ships are visible. Four of them are large vessels with multiple masts and sails, while one is a smaller sailboat with two sails. This smaller boat is to the right of center, and two small people are visible on it, holding ropes. To the left is the largest boat, which we see from the back. This ship is painted in a dark gray or blue color, with red accents and decorations that appear to be carved or painted on the sides. A red flag flies from this ship, as well as two smaller white and red flags. The other boats fly similar flags. On the side of this vessel, cannons emerge from small compartments. The other large vessels in the painting also have visible cannons. The water is painted in shades of gray and blue, with countless small waves. Some of the water appears to be in shadow, and is so dark it almost looks black, while other areas are a light blue-gray shade. The sky is blue, with billowing gray clouds tinged in light yellow and pink. — Anonymous Artist, Dutch Ships in a Lively Breeze, probably 1650s, oil on canvas, Gift of Mrs. Robert Giles, 1947.3.1

Michigan

Flint Institute of Arts
On view now

This painting shows a stylized portrait of a man. He faces forward, looking at us. His features are bold and graphic, with thick eyebrows, a slight smile, and dark shadows on his chin and neck. His face is a golden-orange color, and his hair is dark and close to his head. He wears a formal white collared shirt. The background to the left of his head is the same orange color as his face, while the rest of the background is in shades of light and dark purple. The bottom of his white shirt has areas of blue and orange. The paint has been applied with thick, visible brushstrokes, while the details of the man's face are in black, and appear to have been printed. — Andy Warhol, Mao, 1973, acrylic and silkscreen ink on linen, Corcoran Collection (Gift of the Friends of the Corcoran Gallery of Art), 2014.79.50

A woman kneels, angled to our left, and tips her face down toward a naked baby propped on a pillow against a pile of hay in a shed-like structure in this round painting. The woman and baby have pale skin, blond hair, and their heads are surrounded with gold halos. The woman’s arms cross her chest as she looks down, her eyes nearly closed. She has high cheekbones, a narrow chin, a long, straight nose, and her pale lips are closed. Her long hair tucks under the neck of her aquamarine-blue cloak, which covers her coral-red dress. The dress and robe pool around her legs and under the baby, near her knees to our left. The baby has rounded cheeks and his belly and legs are pudgy. His hands and arms stretch up to the woman and his head is tilted dramatically back to look up at her. One foot, farther from us, kicks out and the other knee is bent. The woman and baby are on a grassy area supported and framed by concrete-gray blocks, over an arched doorway below. The stone blocks also enclose an area housing a donkey and ox to our left. There is a thatched roof above and a landscape with rolling hills and a river beyond. — Sandro Botticelli, The Virgin Adoring the Child, 1480/1490, tempera on poplar panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1952.2.4

Hans Memling, Madonna and Child with Angels, after 1479, oil on panel, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1937.1.41

Nevada

Nevada Museum of Art
On view now

North Carolina

Mint Museum
On view now

This painting is a composition of vertical lines made up of irregular segments. These lines are in various colors, and have been made with short, distinct brushstrokes. The lines are in purple, green, pink, red, and gray hues. Some of the white of the canvas is visible between the brushstrokes. — Alma Thomas, Autumn Drama, c. 1969, acrylic on canvas, Corcoran Collection (The Evans-Tibbs Collection, Gift of Thurlow Evans Tibbs, Jr.), 2015.19.211

A close-up view of a deep plum-purple jack-in-the-pulpit flower surrounded by emerald-green leaves fills this vertical painting. The flower is narrow at its base, where it is striped with white and pale lilac purple, and it flares open like a trumpet in the top half of this composition. The unfurled petal is streaked with wavy white and magenta-pink veins around a deep purple tube-like stalk emerging from inside the base. Leaves in spring and kelly green billow up around the base of the flower along the bottom of the canvas, and more leaves surround the top of the flower. The area behind the pointed, curling tip of the flower glows with a lemon-lime yellow. The space around the flower and bewteen the green leaves is mauve pink. — Georgia O'Keeffe, Jack-in-Pulpit - No. 2, 1930, oil on canvas, Alfred Stieglitz Collection, Bequest of Georgia O'Keeffe, © Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1987.58.1

Edgar Degas, Dancers Backstage, 1876/1883, oil on canvas, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection, 1970.17.25

Utah

Utah Museum of Contemporary Art
On view now

The installation of Sol Lewitt, Wall Drawing No. 307 / Blue circles, red grid, yellow arcs from four corners, black arcs from the midpoints of four sides., 1977, colored pencil, 1991.241.76

Washington

Whatcom Museum
On view now

To our right in this vibrantly colored, stylized, nearly square painting, a woman with light, peach-colored skin and chestnut-brown hair sits slumped along a table as she sleeps, her head resting on one extended arm. The lilac-purple tabletop has round forms representing fruit scattered around a potted plant. Many of the forms are outlined with gray and filled in with mostly flat areas of color in mint and sage green, icy blue, coral red, orange, and lemon yellow. The tabletop curves around its edges and the surface is vivid purple, while the skirt and legs of the table are pale ginger brown. The woman’s head rests facing us on her bent right arm, that hand dangling over the front edge of the table. She rests her other hand, closer to us, near the crook of her elbow. She wears a white, blousy top with rows of navy-blue zigzags on the shoulder and elongated dots on the sleeves, and a light, mint-green skirt. Her brown hair seems to be pulled back and gathered into bunches of curving waves. Her stylized eyes, nose, and mouth are drawn simply with gray lines. The round orange, peach, and yellow fruit on the table are scattered near her arm and across the table to the other side, close to a plant in a brown clay pot. The plant has shoots of long, curving stems with vibrant spruce-green leaves. Two more plants are behind the woman near the back wall, in front a rectangular opening over the woman that could be a window or mirror. The glass is painted with streaks of baby blue and pale magenta pink around a field of white, and is outlined with a band of sunshine yellow and then scarlet red. The wall around it is also painted with watercolor-like, soft fields of pale blue and pink. The floor under the table and to our left is a flat field of caramel brown. Behind the table and to our left, forms suggest a wooden chair and a blue and white ceramic pot on a tall, spindly stand. In the lower left corner of the canvas, the artist signed and dated the work with dark red paint: “40 Henri Matisse.” — Henri Matisse, Still Life with Sleeping Woman, 1940, oil on canvas, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 1985.64.26

Auguste Renoir, Picking Flowers, 1875, oil on canvas, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection, 1970.17.61

Painted with loose, visible brushstrokes mostly in shades of spring green, sky blue, straw yellow, and ivory white, four couples lock in intense embraces across a landscape in front of a body of water in this nearly square painting. Trees rise up and off the top edges to both sides of the canvas, and a band of green grass runs across the width. Just beyond, a body of pale blue water extends to the horizon, which comes about a quarter of the way up the composition. Off-white clouds swirl against the topaz-blue sky above. Three pairs of people are spaced evenly across the grass, close to us, and the fourth pair are on a steep rise to our right. The people all have pale or slightly peachy skin, and most of them have honey-yellow hair. The painting technique is loose throughout, making many details, especially facial features and some body parts, indistinct. Near the lower left corner, a nude person crouches on the ground with an arm raised overhead while another person, nude except for a few swipes of brick red to suggest a cape, stands above with one arm raised. At the center of the painting, two people with long, blond hair seem to embrace, though the one farther from us is partially or wholly lifted off the ground. To our right, a tanned person kneels over a pale, nude woman with rounded breasts and hips. Their heads blend together, possibly to suggest that they kiss, and one of them has black hair. They hold hands locked overhead. Dark gray strokes nearby in the lower right corner of the painting suggest a dog leaping at this couple. The fourth pair is on a sand-colored rise, about halfway up the right edge of the composition. They are even more loosely painted, but one person seems to grab onto the other as they tip toward the ground or water below. — Paul Cezanne, The Battle of Love, c. 1880, oil on canvas, Gift of the W. Averell Harriman Foundation in memory of Marie N. Harriman, 1972.9.2