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Three apples and two pears sit next to a knife and a luminous, white mug on a tan, stone surface before a muted, olive-green background in this horizontal still life painting. The objects and background are painted with blended strokes, giving the painting a soft, glowing appearance. At the center of the ledge or table, the apples are dappled with candy red and pale yellow. Two golden and moss-green pears are to our left, one upright and the other lying with its stem coming toward us. The fruit is painted with white highlights from a light source to our left. The cream-white mug sits next to the apples to our right. The mug has straight sides, a low band near the top and bottom, and the handle curves out to our right. Between the apples and mug, the black handle of a knife angles to our right, off the edge of the table. Shadows are painted in brick red on the surface of the table, which extends off both sides of the canvas. There is a vertical seam in the table under the upright pear.
Jean Siméon Chardin, Still Life with a White Mug, c. 1764, oil on canvas, Gift of the W. Averell Harriman Foundation in memory of Marie N. Harriman, 1972.9.6

Still Life with a White Mug

Jean Siméon Chardin · c. 1764 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1972.9.6

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

A man with tanned skin is surrounded by animals as he reclines against a grassy slope in this horizontal landscape painting. The area close to us is darkened or in shadow, so some details are difficult to make out, but the land brightens under a golden sky as it recedes into the deep, hazy distance. In the lower left corner of the canvas, the man faces our right in profile, looking toward the grazing animals. He wears a wide-brimmed hat and a caramel-brown jacket over a knee-length garment. He leans back on his near arm with one leg bent and the other extended. His far hand lies across his torso and holds a short staff. A dark brown goat, tan-colored sheep, and brown and gray cows wander and nibble on muted green, scrubby growth that carpets the hilly ground, which stretches across the center and right side of the composition. Trees with laurel-green canopies grow up beyond the man, and extend off the top edge of the painting. A slender, almost leafless tree frames the scene on the right. Two men walk on a gently arched, stone bridge beyond the spindly tree. Low hills slope down to a misty blue-gray plain, where a river winds along a jagged bank dotted with trees. In the far distance, ghostly buildings stretch along a line of slate-blue mountains. A glowing sun in the upper left corner casts diffused light across the scene. The sky is scattered with wisps of thin clouds.
Anonymous Artist, The Herdsman, 17th or 18th century, oil on canvas, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1946.7.12

The Herdsman

Anonymous Artist · 17th or 18th century · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1946.7.12

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, View near Epernon, 1850/1860, oil on canvas, Widener Collection, 1942.9.13

View near Epernon

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot · 1850/1860 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1942.9.13

A man bows to a woman as another man looks on from the shadowy background, while a woman sitting at a table plays a lute in this vertical painting. All the people have pale skin. The bowing man enters from an open door to our left. He faces our right in profile and has a bumped nose, a dark mustache, and his brown hair falls loosely over his shoulders. He wears a voluminous, black jacket that has a wide white collar and flat, plate-like, starched white cuffs. He bends forward with one foot stretched in front of him, as he gazes at the woman to our right. His hands are spread wide. His left forefinger and thumb touch to make an O shape, and he holds a wide-brimmed, black hat in his right hand, closer to us. At the center of the composition, the woman wears a dress with a coral-pink bodice and a cream-white satin skirt trimmed with gold down the front and around the hem. She faces our left in profile and looks at the man, her cheeks flushed. Her eyebrows are slightly raised over dark eyes, and she has a straight nose and the hint of a double chin. Her blond hair is pulled back under a lace covering, and curls frame her face. A black ribbon is tied into a bow at the shoulder closer to us. A brown and white dog, about knee-high, stands between the man and woman. To our right, a young woman sits at the far side of a table playing a lute. She wears a sapphire-blue dress and looks down at her instrument. One elbow is propped on the patterned rug that covers the table. A second instrument, perhaps a cello, lies on the table, and a wooden chair with a pine-green upholstered seat has been pulled up to our side of the table. Almost lost in the shadows at the back of the room between the two women, a man with a goatee and wearing a brown jacket and trousers stands with his body angled to our right as he looks over his shoulder at the couple at the door. He stands in front of a fireplace with an opening so large that the mantle is supported by columns as tall as the man.
Gerard ter Borch the Younger, The Suitor's Visit, c. 1658, oil on canvas, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1937.1.58

The Suitor's Visit

Gerard ter Borch the Younger · c. 1658 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1937.1.58

Jean Honoré Fragonard, Love the Sentinel, c. 1773/1776, oil on canvas, In memory of Kate Seney Simpson, 1947.2.2

Love the Sentinel

Jean Honoré Fragonard · c. 1773/1776 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1947.2.2

A pair of arched cave openings yawn in a steep, rocky cliff face that fills this horizontal painting. The cliff face is painted with dabs and textured strokes of slate gray, peachy tan, and muted blue, and some moss grows along crevices to our left. The opening to our left of center is four times the size of the smaller opening next to it. Murky green water reflects the shadowy openings and the pier-like stone between them. The water churns white over large boulders to our right, in the lower corner of the canvas. A pale-skinned man, minuscule in scale in front of the larger opening, stands barefoot with his back to us. His pants are rolled up over his knees and the long shirt sleeves up to the elbow under a vest. One hand is raised to hold a long stick. He is on what might be a pier stretching across the water. The artist signed the work with red paint in the lower left corner, “Gustave Courbet.”
Gustave Courbet, La Grotte de la Loue, 1864, oil on canvas, Gift of Charles L. Lindemann, 1957.6.1

La Grotte de la Loue

Gustave Courbet · 1864 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1957.6.1

Sixteen men, women, and children sit on or walk among seven horses against a landscape with tall, narrow trees, buildings, and distant mountains under a vivid blue sky in this horizontal painting. In the lower left corner, a man and woman approach the group, which are arrayed across a dirt ground. The man carries a large basket with chickens over one arm and doffs his hat with his other hand. Just behind him, the woman carries a flat-bottomed, wide basket of fruit and vegetables balanced on her head. Some of the men in the main group wear wide-brimmed, feathered hats, long coats in shades of peanut brown, black, and scarlet red, and knee-length pants over stockings. The two other women wear gold-trimmed dresses in shimmering orchid pink or sapphire blue. Several of the men and women ride or prepare to ride horses, which range in shades of brown, gray, white, and black. Nine dogs with brown, white, or black fur frolic, stand, or lie among the horses. One boy pours from a jug into a stemmed glass with a flaring bowl, held by a man holding a curling hunting horn. Just beyond this pair, another man, wearing black and sitting on a horse, blows into a curving horn held up in one hand, while his other hand is planted on his hip. All the people have pale pink skin except for two men. One, to our right, is possibly of short stature and he has an olive complexion. He wears a crimson-red jacket and holds a falcon on one gloved hand. The second man has brown skin and holds the reins of a gray horse near the right edge of the composition. Near the lower right corner of the painting, a potted miniature orange tree sits on a ledge next to a peacock who perches nearby. A second peacock’s head peers out from behind the ledge. A fountain just behind the group at the center has water pouring from a stylized fish’s mouth. A sculpted woman riding the fish holds up a long object while water spouts in thin streams from her breasts. Another statue stands between two tall, spear-like trees to our left. To our right, about two dozen people look onto the scene below from a rooftop terrace on a section of the building rising up along the right edge of the painting. There, a band of musicians plays while guests dine at a small table with a peacock-shaped pie, as two more people bring out trays of food. On the front face of that structure, a man and woman talk on a balcony, as a monkey eating an orange perches on the banister. A grassy lawn or garden stretches back to a large manor house, which is hazy in the distance to our right. The horizon comes about a quarter of the way up this composition, and the sky above has bright white and flint-gray clouds against a brilliant blue sky. The overlapping letters “DG” are inscribed on the rump of a horse to our left, near the fountain. Painted in red in the lower right corner, the letters “PHILS” are entwined in a monogram next to a “W.”
Philips Wouwerman, The Departure for the Hunt, c. 1665/1668, oil on panel, The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund, in honor of Earl A. Powell III, Director of the National Gallery of Art (1992-2019), 2019.2.1

The Departure for the Hunt

Philips Wouwerman · c. 1665/1668 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  2019.2.1

Shown from the chest up, a light-skinned man with a wrinkled face and a silvery gray beard and hair gazes into the distance in this oval portrait painting. His chest is angled to our right but he turns his head to look off over his other shoulder, to our left. His slate-blue eyes are a little sunken and lined with wrinkles. Shading marks the hollows of the temple and cheek we can see. His thin lips are closed and framed by his curly mustache and beard. A dark, mahogany-brown cap is pushed back on his head, and his brown jacket has gold-colored buttons down the front. The collar of a cream-colored shirt shows through at the neckline. The background is dark olive green. The artist signed the work near the man’s shoulder, to our right: “GDOV.”
Gerrit Dou, Bust of a Bearded Man, c. 1642/1645, oil on panel, Corcoran Collection (William A. Clark Collection), 2014.136.32

Bust of a Bearded Man

Gerrit Dou · c. 1642/1645 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  2014.136.32

In a deeply shadowed room, two women and several children are gathered at the center of this wide, oval painting, looking toward a young man and donkey who peer in over a half-door to our left. The people all have light skin, and all of the children have blond hair. Light coming into the darkened room falls on a young woman holding a baby at the center of the composition. The woman sits facing our left in profile, looking at or toward the baby with brown eyes and parted lips. She has a long, straight nose, flushed cheeks, and her brown hair is pulled back into a bun at the back of her head. She wears a low-cut, ivory-white bodice with puffy sleeves, a black sash tied around her waist, and a voluminous crimson-red skirt. She props the baby so the child stands braced on chubby legs against her lap as the woman supports the torso and backside. One of the baby’s hands reaches for the woman’s neck and the other for her forehead as the head twists back to look to our left. The child wears a white garment. Two more children rest near the woman, with one leaning back against the woman’s shins and the other sitting with a white dog at the woman’s side, closer to us. Both children wear brown, white, and teal blue. Behind this group, another woman, seen mostly silhouetted against the shadows, reaches back and braces another child who seems to sit on a box or chest. The fifth and final child stands at the head of the donkey who peeks in over the half-door to our left. Above the donkey, a young, cleanshaven man wearing a wide-brimmed hat and baggy coat leans into the room and looks toward the central woman, a smile on his lips. His features are cast into shadow by the light coming in behind him but he has dark hair and dark eyes. The room beyond the women and children is draped with a gray cloth, as if hung over a low beam. The upper regions of the room are swallowed in shadow.
Jean Honoré Fragonard, The Happy Family, c. 1775, oil on canvas, Timken Collection, 1960.6.12

The Happy Family

Jean Honoré Fragonard · c. 1775 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1960.6.12