Private Collection, Zurich

Explore Selected Works

A woman wearing a long, royal-blue dress is surrounded by nine winged angels as she floats on a thin, bright white, downward-pointing crescent moon above a deep landscape with a town tucked into rolling hills in this vertical painting. The woman, Mary, and all the angels have pale, peachy skin and long, brown hair. Mary and the angels float against a pale yellow and pale peach field of light enclosed within a mass of steel-gray clouds. She presses her fingertips together in front of her chest and gazes down and to our right, her dark eyes almost closed. She has a delicate, straight nose, and her small mouth is closed. Her brown hair parts in the middle and flows down over her shoulders. The angels wear flowing gowns in sky or topaz blue, olive green, tangerine orange, white, or light pink, each with matching wings. Three angels place a gold crown on Mary's head. Four others hold up the edges of a silvery white cape, which is fastened across her shoulders with brooches of white pearls surrounding ruby-red stones. The final two angels hold up the downward-facing points of the crescent moon beneath her. In the landscape below, groupings of trees are dotted among the rolling hills, with a village in the distance to our left. The blue, hazy horizon comes about a sixth of the way up the composition. A brown boulder sits in the bottom left corner, closer to us. The paint is visibly cracked throughout.
Michel Sittow, The Assumption of the Virgin, c. 1500, oil on panel, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, 1965.1.1

The Assumption of the Virgin

Michel Sittow · c. 1500 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  1965.1.1

Wassily Kandinsky, Geteilt (Divided), 1928, watercolor and ink on wove paper on Kandinsky's original black paper mount, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Stephen M. Kellen, 1999.51.1

Geteilt (Divided)

Wassily Kandinsky · 1928 · watercolor and ink on wove paper on Kandinsky's original black paper mount ·  Accession ID  1999.51.1

A patchwork of earth-toned rectangles, cubes, and prism-like shapes surrounded by pools of cool aquamarine and silvery gray fill this square, nearly abstract painting. Brushstrokes, which are mostly horizontal, and dashes are visible throughout. A curving, pointed form at the lower center could be a boat with a tall, fawn-brown mast. It is surrounded by forms suggestive of rocks, other boats, or structures against a watery horizon. Most of the shapes around the boat are leather brown, tan, apricot orange, muted violet, or steel gray. Another pole, also suggestive of a mast, angles up from near the lower left corner, about a third of the way into the composition. Many of the shapes are outlined with charcoal-gray lines. Horizontal and blended strokes in pewter gray and icy blue at the upper corners suggest the sky.
Georges Braque, Harbor, 1909, oil on canvas, Gift of Victoria Nebeker Coberly in memory of her son, John W. Mudd, 1992.3.1

Harbor

Georges Braque · 1909 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1992.3.1

Guglielmo Cortese, God the Father and the Holy Spirit Receiving the Body of Christ, 1660/1665, red and black chalk with sanguine and gray wash, heightened with white gouache, on beige laid paper, Wolfgang Ratjen Collection, Patrons' Permanent Fund, 2007.111.59

God the Father and the Holy Spirit Receiving the Body of Christ

Guglielmo Cortese · 1660/1665 · red and black chalk with sanguine and gray wash, heightened with white gouache, on beige laid paper ·  Accession ID  2007.111.59