Emile and Isaac Pereire

French

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Towering, pale, celery-green trees frame a view of a lush park with about a dozen elegantly dressed, light-skinned men and women in this vertical landscape painting. The color palette is dominated by moss and lemon-lime green, golden yellow, and spruce blue. The men all wear jackets with long tails over knee-breeches, and their long hair is pulled back at the napes of their necks. The women wear long dresses with full skirts and hints of lace at the sleeves and bust, and their brown or white hair is pulled up. Nine of the men and women gather to our right on a stone terrace along the bottom edge of the painting. A man in butter yellow kneels in front of a woman wearing rose pink. Around this pair, people stand, kneel, sit, or recline wearing aquamarine blue, light turquoise, or ivory white. A man and woman sit on a bench to our left, a little removed from the larger group. This woman wears ruby red and the man leaning toward her wears topaz blue. Two people in the park beyond these groups are painted with only a few strokes of pale blue and white paint, and they look over a low hedge row lining the walking path. Beds of red flowers fill the lower corners of the composition in front of a statue of a woman to our left and a person, perhaps on a fountain, to our right. The grassy walking path and trees become more blue as they fade into the hazy distance between the tall tress to either side. The sky fades from pale blue along the horizon to a silvery blue, almost white, at the top.
Jean Honoré Fragonard, A Game of Hot Cockles, c. 1775/1780, oil on canvas, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1946.7.6

A Game of Hot Cockles

Jean Honoré Fragonard · c. 1775/1780 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1946.7.6

Two women, four men, and a satyr, which is a creature with a man’s body and hairy goat’s legs, gather in a wooded landscape in this horizontal painting. All the people have pale, peachy skin. At the center of the group, to our left of center, a young, cleanshaven man balances on the ball of one foot as he strides toward us. He turns his head to his left so he faces our right in profile, and he looks off in that direction. He wears a ring of laurel leaves in his blond curls and his lips are parted. He holds a jeweled, golden stringed instrument, a lyre, in the crook of his right arm, on our left. He lifts his other hand to gesture toward the men to our right. He is nude except for a coral-red cloak fastened with a gold clasp at his neck. The cloak billows around his muscular body, and one bottom corner curls across his hip to cover his groin. To our left, two women sit on a rocky outcropping. The woman to our left holds a sapphire-blue robe to her chest. Her golden brown hair is pulled back, and she looks at the young man. The second woman sits with her body facing away from us, her arms resting on the rock in front of her. Her nude back faces us and she has a soft, rounded belly. She sits against a white cloth, and a light sage-green cloak pools around her hips and lies across one thigh. To our right, behind the young man holding a lyre, two bearded men sit on a rock with their bodies angled toward each other. The man to our left wears a leafy crown and holds a wooden staff. The second man wears a topaz-blue hood and robe, and turns to speak to his neighbor as he points in the opposite direction. Closer to us, near the right edge of the painting, the satyr plays a set of pan pipes. The man sitting next to him has tall, pointed, ass’s ears and a pointed, red beard. He wears a shimmering butter-yellow cloak over a brick-red tunic, and he rests one hand on the satyr’s shoulder. The entire group is enclosed by tall, tawny-brown rocks and leafy, sage-green trees. In the upper left corner, lilac-purple clouds float across a pale blue sky. The scene is painted with swirling brushstrokes that are especially visible in the clothing and background.
Jan van den Hoecke, The Judgment of Midas, c. 1640, oil on panel, Corcoran Collection (William A. Clark Collection), 2015.143.18

The Judgment of Midas

Jan van den Hoecke · c. 1640 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  2015.143.18

Two pale-skinned women sit together surrounded by five sheep and a dog in a lush forest in this vertical painting. The woman to our right sits slightly above the other, with her arm draped around the shoulders of her companion. The woman to our right wears a low-cut, rose-pink dress with a full skirt and voluminous, gossamer sleeves. Blond curls are pulled back behind a headband, which is adorned over one ear with three large, pink flowers and smaller yellow and blue flowers. She tips her head to our right as she gazes down to her left at her friend. She has blue eyes, flushed cheeks, a delicate nose, and her grapefruit-pink lips curl in a gentle smile. She crosses one knee over the other and leans toward the other woman. Tucked into her side, the second woman looks up at the first in profile facing our right. Her low-cut, lavender-purple dress has a gold shimmer that suggests silk. Her ash-brown curls are pulled back and decorated with small sea-blue flowers. One toe peeks out from her long skirt, and both women are barefoot. The woman in purple holds a white dove on her friend’s lap, and the woman in pink holds a small envelope closed with a shell-pink seal next to the bird. The dove’s wings are slightly outspread, and a blue ribbon is tied around its neck. Just behind the pair, a towering tree with a silvery-gray trunk grows up and off the top edge of the painting. It angles to our left, and green branches hang down into the picture. To our right of the tree, a rectangular sand-brown stone structure is topped with a male lion carved from the same stone, near the upper right corner. The ground beneath the women is covered with moss-green growth and the space around them filled with verdant bushes and plants. A single, cream-colored sheep stands to our right, facing the women, next to a basket of flowers near the lower right corner. Four more sheep stand and lie together beyond the women to our left, while a black-bodied hound with a white muzzle sits watching the women. A pile of broken branches, perhaps forming a fence, lies behind the sheep. Grassy hills and trees become hazy in the distance beyond, and the sky above is slate blue with a few white and pale pink clouds. The upper and lower right corners and the lower left corner are deep in shade. The artist signed and dated the painting as if he had inscribed the stone in the shadow just below the lion, “f. Boucher 1750.”
François Boucher, The Love Letter, 1750, oil on canvas, Timken Collection, 1960.6.3

The Love Letter

François Boucher · 1750 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1960.6.3

Seven pale-skinned people crowd around a wooden table to our right in this horizontal painting, as several more gather around a fire in a deeply shadowed room beyond, to our left. The room we are in has high ceilings and peanut-brown walls and floor. At the center of the composition, a man dressed in mustard yellow with a yellow and burnt-orange jester’s cap stands facing us. His smiling mouth is agape, and he lifts his left arm, to our right, to gesture toward the group at the table there. His feet are widely planted, and a ceramic jug dangles from his other hand. At the table to our right, one man sits at the front, left corner of the table, leaning back in his chair as he raises his black hat high in his right hand, closer to us. His face is tipped up and his mouth is wide open. Across from him is another young man in a blue-gray jacket who wears a paper crown. With the back of the wrist closer to us planted on his hip, he tilts back his head to drink from a tall tankard held in his other hand. One young and one older woman women sit smiling among the men. The younger woman wears a navy-blue dress with a white cap covering the back of her blond hair, and the older woman is in ocean blue with a white head covering. Two more men at the table also have their mouths open and wear earth-toned clothes. A man has poked his head through a small, squared opening high on the wall above the table to our right, to look down at the group. Over the the man in the jester's hat, a gray owl sits chained to a perch driven into the wood stud that frames the wall behind the group. Bits of paper are scattered on the floor and two terracotta jugs sit gleaming in the lower right corner. A tawny cat peers out from behind the drinker’s seat. A dog with sable-brown fur lies near a low table in the lower left corner of the painting. A shallow, terracotta dish with short feet sits on the table and a brown ceramic jug, oyster shells, and a few stalks of straw sit near the dog and table. In the dimly lit room beyond this one, a man, woman, and four children gather around a fireplace. The woman holds a long-handled griddle over the flame, and she turns to look back over her shoulder. The artist signed and dated the work as if he had written on the front edge of the low table to our left: “D. TENIERS F 1635.”
David Teniers the Younger, Peasants Celebrating Twelfth Night, 1635, oil on panel, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, 1972.10.1

Peasants Celebrating Twelfth Night

David Teniers the Younger · 1635 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  1972.10.1

In a lush, tree-lined park, filtered light falls across a group of about a dozen light-skinned people lounging and frolicking along the banks of a river in this vertical landscape painting. A man wearing a shell-pink jacket and pants and woman wearing a topaz-blue, full-skirted dress and rose-pink bonnet sit near each other in the lower left corner. Several younger boys pile up in a game where one person tries to ride on the back of another, to our right. They wear rolled-up pants, open-necked shirts, and some wear straw-colored hats. Tall aspens, with smooth greenish-white trunks and soft, golden leaves, are among the trees that line this placid river. A gnarled trunk twists against the cloudless blue sky above the revelers to our right. Other couples board a long, narrow boat at the riverbank in the distance.
Jean Honoré Fragonard, A Game of Horse and Rider, c. 1775/1780, oil on canvas, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1946.7.5

A Game of Horse and Rider

Jean Honoré Fragonard · c. 1775/1780 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1946.7.5