Provenance

Private Collection, England

Explore Selected Works

See all 17 works of art
Georges François Blondel, View of a Prison, c. 1765, mezzotint on laid paper, Paul Mellon Fund, 2001.118.2

View of a Prison

Georges François Blondel · c. 1765 · mezzotint on laid paper ·  Accession ID  2001.118.2

""

Self-Portrait

Baldassare Franceschini · 1640s · red chalk on laid paper ·  Accession ID  2020.151.1

Georges François Blondel, A View of the Inside of the New Prison at Rome, c. 1765, mezzotint on laid paper, Paul Mellon Fund, 2001.118.1

A View of the Inside of the New Prison at Rome

Georges François Blondel · c. 1765 · mezzotint on laid paper ·  Accession ID  2001.118.1

Four men and one woman gather around a dead man who is dressed in a bright honey-gold cape and pointed hat, his stone-gray face resting on a stump or column in this dark vertical painting. All the people have peachy skin or light skin tinged with green. Shown from the knees up, Saint Gennaro, the dead man, twists and slumps to our right. On the stump, his eyes are closed and his lips parted. His hands are crossed at his waist and bound with rope. He wears a tall hat rising to a peak in the center. His cloak drapes over a white tunic, and red seeps from around his neck. On our right, a brown-haired woman is shown from the waist up, bending down in front of Saint Gennaro’s face. The light falls across the scene from our right, so her profile is in shadow. She holds a silver chalice in one hand and squeezes something, perhaps a rag or sponge, over the chalice with her other hand. A clean-shaven man with dark curly hair stands behind the stump. That man’s body faces us as he leans to our right and tilts his head down over Saint Gennaro, his shadowed face obscured. His left hand is under the dead man’s head and his right hand clutches his own chest. Behind the dead man and to our left, a bald, gray bearded man bends over and spreads his arms wide over and across the saint’s back. His brow is furrowed, and he looks at Saint Gennaro with deep-set eyes. Along the left edge of the canvas, a bald man with a hooked nose and large ears stands and angles his body to our right, his face in profile. He leans back from the dead man, his right hand holding a knife or sword with a bird-shaped hilt. The fourth man close to Saint Gennaro looks on to our right, from behind the stooping woman. The people gathered around Saint Gennaro wear clothes in muted shades of gray, brown, and white. The edge of a building rises up along the left edge of the composition. In front of a distant mountain to our right, more people are gathered, some with swords raised and others looking on with mouths gaping. One faint head, the face painted in tones of ash gray, peeks over the shoulder of the fourth man. Yellow streaks near the horizon also illuminate the undersides of heavy, dark gray clouds above.
Mattia Preti, The Martyrdom of Saint Gennaro, c. 1685, oil on canvas, Patrons' Permanent Fund, 2000.75.1

The Martyrdom of Saint Gennaro

Mattia Preti · c. 1685 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  2000.75.1

John Boydell, James Watson, The Female Correspondent, 1771, mezzotint on laid paper, Paul Mellon Fund, 2001.118.72

The Female Correspondent

John Boydell, James Watson · 1771 · mezzotint on laid paper ·  Accession ID  2001.118.72

Anonymous Artist, River Landscape with Villages and Travelers [verso], c. 1675/1685, oil on copper, Gift of Ladislaus and Beatrix von Hoffmann and Patrons' Permanent Fund, 1997.85.1.b

River Landscape with Villages and Travelers [verso]

Anonymous Artist · c. 1675/1685 · oil on copper ·  Accession ID  1997.85.1.b

Rembrandt van Rijn, Abraham Entertaining the Angels [recto], 1656, etched copper plate with drypoint, Gift of Ladislaus and Beatrix von Hoffmann and Patrons' Permanent Fund, 1997.85.1.a

Abraham Entertaining the Angels [recto]

Rembrandt van Rijn · 1656 · etched copper plate with drypoint ·  Accession ID  1997.85.1.a

Abraham van Diepenbeeck, Sir Peter Paul Rubens, The Conversion of Saint Paul, 1640s, pen and ink and oil paint over black chalk on brown paper, laid down on canvas, Pepita Milmore Memorial Fund, 1999.25.1

The Conversion of Saint Paul

Abraham van Diepenbeeck, Sir Peter Paul Rubens · 1640s · pen and ink and oil paint over black chalk on brown paper, laid down on canvas ·  Accession ID  1999.25.1

Three men and a woman sit around a wooden table on the right side of a dimly lit room in this horizontal painting. The scene is painted entirely in warm shades of bronze, golden yellow, and dark brown. A cleanshaven man to our right, Mercury, is dramatically backlit by golden light so we see his face almost in silhouette, though we can make out his eyes, straight nose, and parted lips. He rests both hands on the table, one palm down by the edge close to him and one palm up in front of him, near a glass of amber-colored liquid. He wears a gray and brown tunic, and light glinting in his chin-length hair suggests a silver band or another ornament. He looks toward a man and woman at the other end of the table, to our left and near the center of the composition. The woman’s head is covered with a dark cloth, and she holds a gray fowl in her lap. Her lips are also parted and her face tips down. The man next to her, closer to us, has a gray beard and hair, and he holds a rust-red cap at his chest with both hands as he looks across the table. A bowl of food lies in the center of the table between this couple and Mercury. The fourth person has a long gray beard and hair, and faces us across the table. He wears a gleaming copper and silvery-gray robe and cloak, and holds one hand up, palm down, over the table. Much of the rest of the room is swallowed in shadow but there is the suggestion of rafters and beams, and a small fire glows in a hearth on the left side of the scene. The artist signed and dated the lower left, “Rembrandt f. 1658.”
Rembrandt van Rijn, Philemon and Baucis, 1658, oil on panel transferred to panel, Widener Collection, 1942.9.65

Philemon and Baucis

Rembrandt van Rijn · 1658 · oil on panel transferred to panel ·  Accession ID  1942.9.65

Charles-Louis-Lucien Müller, Head of a Bearded Gentleman, early 1860s, black chalk with white heightening on blue paper, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, 2010.41.2

Head of a Bearded Gentleman

Charles-Louis-Lucien Müller · early 1860s · black chalk with white heightening on blue paper ·  Accession ID  2010.41.2