Provenance

Henri Rouart

French, 1833 - 1912

Explore Selected Works

Honoré Daumier, French Theater, c. 1856, oil on wood, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.13

French Theater

Honoré Daumier · c. 1856 · oil on wood ·  Accession ID  1963.10.13

An older man, a woman, and a child who holds a chair upside-down on his head stand near each other in this vertical painting, which is made with dabs and strokes of muted grays, cream white, and golden tan. The scene is lit from our right, creating deep shadows. At the center of the composition, the man has light gray skin and he stands with his body angled slightly to our left, as he looks in that direction. His eyes are shaded and he has a round nose over a mouth mostly covered in shadow. His hat has two peaks like rounded horns and a smoke-gray scarf wraps around his neck. He wears a loose, cream-white shirt under a slate-blue jacket, and dark pants. His feet are loosely painted so it is difficult to tell if he is barefoot or if his shoes are sketchily painted. A rolled-up mat held under one arm and a small wooden box held with the other hand are loosely painted and nearly lost in shadow. To our right, just behind the man, the child wears a parchment-white, full body leotard with long sleeves and pants. His pale peach-colored hands grip the ladder back of the chair, which rests upside down on his head and casts his face into shadow. To our left, the woman is mostly in shadow. A peach-colored oval suggests her face and she wears a dark garment, perhaps a shawl, over a coffee-brown, ankle-length skirt. Her weight rests on her right foot, to our left, and she holds a large drum by her other side. The background is painted indistinctly with an area of bone white in the upper left corner, which stretches nearly across the composition along the top. Most of the rest is darker sand brown with a small patch of turquoise-blue paint near the upper right corner.
Honoré Daumier, Wandering Saltimbanques, 1847/1850, oil on wood, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.14

Wandering Saltimbanques

Honoré Daumier · 1847/1850 · oil on wood ·  Accession ID  1963.10.14

Shown from the knees up, a pale-skinned, clean-shaven man stands looking off to our right in this vertical portrait painting. The man’s body is squared to us, but he turns his head to the right and looks down in that direction with brown eyes. He has a wide-bridged nose, full lips, and a rounded chin. His cheekbone-length brown hair is parted to the side and brushed straight over his ears. His tomato-red cravat is tied high around his neck over a white shirt and an olive-green vest patterned with a gold-colored grid. His navy-blue coat falls almost to his knees, and he wears brown pants. The stone ledge comes almost to hip height, and the man leans onto his left hand, to our right, braced near its front ledge. The ledge and background are flint gray deepening to iron gray along the bottom edge. The artist signed the painting as if his name was carved into the front face of the ledge: “F. MILLET.”
Jean-François Millet, Leconte de Lisle, c. 1840/1841, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.42

Leconte de Lisle

Jean-François Millet · c. 1840/1841 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1963.10.42

Bibliography

1976

  • Boime, Albert. "Entrepreneurial Patronage in Nineteenth Century France" in Enterprise and Entrepreneurs in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century France. ed. by Edward C. Carter II et al. Johns Hopkins, 1976:154

1984

  • Gordon, Dillian. Edgar Degas, Hélène Rouart in her Father's Study Exh. Cat. London, National Gallery, 1984

1989

  • Distel, Anne. Les collectionneurs des impressionists: Amateurs et marchands. Paris, 1989:177-185

1997

  • Grammont, Claudine. "Le legs Rouart: reunion de famille." Beaus-Arts Magazine 161 (October 1997): 100-105.

  • Lefranc, Celine. "Les tribulations d'une collection." Connaissance des Art 544 (November 1997): 110-115.