Provenance

E. and A. Silberman Galleries, Inc.

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About three dozen men and women sit, stand, or stroll along a sandy beach beneath a sunset-streaked sky in this horizontal landscape painting. The people are small in scale within the landscape, taking up about a quarter of the canvas's height. The scene is loosely painted so many of the facial features are indistinct, but the faces we can see have pale or olive-toned skin. The area closest to us is a strip of sand, and, a short distance away, a brown and white dog sits facing away from us to our left of center. The women all wear dresses with long sleeves, tight bodices, and ankle-length hoop skirts in shades of baby blue, smoke gray, butter yellow, chocolate brown, crimson red, black, or white. Some wear jackets, capes, or shawls, and veils flutter off some of their hats and bonnets. The men wear suits with long tails and rounded hats. Most of the people sit in wooden chairs, and a few stand or walk along the beach. The walking women carrying long sticks or canes. Smudges of ruby red, slate blue, and a touch of straw yellow could be the form of a child crouching in the sand, to our left. Two ladderback chairs sit near the crowd to our right. The horizon comes less than a quarter of the way up the composition. Thin screens of pale gray clouds above are touched on the undersides with petal pink, and they break to show peeks of soft yellow along the horizon and topaz blue a bit higher up.
Eugène Boudin, The Beach at Villerville, 1864, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.4

The Beach at Villerville

Eugène Boudin · 1864 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1963.10.4

Set within a gold frame, the head and chest of a young man wearing an ornate helmet and armor, facing our right in profile, is carved in relief from white marble in this vertical panel. The man has a long nose, smooth cheeks, closed bow lips, and a snub chin. Curls burst from beneath his helmet, which sweeps from up over his forehead down to the back of his neck. The lifted visor curves up and out past his nose, and is decorated with vines and flowers. The crown of the helmet spirals like a snail shell over the man’s head, and a dragon perches along the top. The dragon has a dog’s head, a scaled body, wings like a bat, a serpent-like tail, and a section of its long neck has been broken off. Two crimped ribbons flutter up and behind the man’s head from the back of the helmet, where it covers his neck. His chest is covered to his neck with a highly ornamented breast plate. At the front of the chest, an adult face with brows furrowed and mouth wide open is flanked by wings. The shoulder we can see is covered with a medallion showing a nude woman holding a cornucopia and a merman. Beneath the medallion, a row of six faces, each on its own narrow panel, fan out over the man’s upper arm. Scrolling vines, leaves, and flowers fill the remaining space around the medallion and winged head. A few pale, parchment-white veins run through the surface of the marble. The panel sits on a shallow, trapezoidal ledge and is framed in a stepped gold frame on the remaining three sides.
Florentine 15th Century, Alexander the Great, c. 1483/1485, marble, Gift of Therese K. Straus, 1956.2.1

Alexander the Great

Florentine 15th Century · c. 1483/1485 · marble ·  Accession ID  1956.2.1

Bernardo Strozzi, Bishop Alvise Grimani, 1633 or after, oil on canvas, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1961.9.41

Bishop Alvise Grimani

Bernardo Strozzi · 1633 or after · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1961.9.41

South German 16th Century, Door Pull in the Form of a Lion's Head, c. 1500, brass, Gift of Janos Scholz, 1993.42.1

Door Pull in the Form of a Lion's Head

South German 16th Century · c. 1500 · brass ·  Accession ID  1993.42.1