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Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg
Rosenberg, Einsatzstab Reichsleiter

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A woman wearing a pale blue and gray patterned top and turquoise skirt stretches out in an armchair in this stylized, almost square painting. The scene is loosely painted with areas of mostly flat color, especially in the background, so some details are difficult to make out. The woman is centered in the composition, and her legs stretch to our left. She has upswept dark brown hair, peach-colored skin, and her eyes, nose, and mouth are drawn with dark gray lines. Her blousy top is vertically patterned with lead-gray leaves down the front and elongated dots on the sleeves. Each sleeve also has a carrot-orange band on the upper arm. Her skirt is spearmint green, and she wears bone-white pumps. She sits in a canary-yellow armchair with red down the front of the arms and along the bottom, where the wood frame would be. One foot stretches to rest on a matching footstool, while her other leg is curled under her. The denim-blue floor tilts toward us and is covered with thin white lines in a chevron pattern. In the lower right is a red table with a bright yellow vase covered with swipes of brown and green. The vase is filled with elongated, abstract mauve-pink and mint-green shapes on slender white stems. The back wall of the room has an aqua-green cabinet to our left, which holds a silver urn and dishes of round objects. There is also a cantaloupe-orange footstool and other pieces of small furniture there, below paintings on the white wall. Above the woman is a white door with panels outlined in gray, and a section of black wall to our right has more paintings. The artist signed and dated the lower right, “Henri Matisse 40.”
Henri Matisse, Woman Seated in an Armchair, 1940, oil on canvas, Given in loving memory of her husband, Taft Schreiber, by Rita Schreiber, 1989.31.1

Woman Seated in an Armchair

Henri Matisse · 1940 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1989.31.1

We look down onto papers and books piled on a small wooden table with delicate, spindle legs, with a dog and cat on a sofa in the background in this vibrantly colored, stylized, vertical painting. The scene is loosely painted with dabs and visible brushstrokes in butterscotch and golden yellow, azure and navy blue, apple red, and white. The square table takes up most of the bottom two-thirds of the composition. Its surface is almost entirely covered with a spread of papers and stacks of books, including two thick, white volumes near the front, right corner and a thin red book on the other front corner. Smaller squares between the books are painted with streaks and washes of turquoise blue, scarlet, and brick red. A tall, narrow vase with abstracted, ice-blue flowers sits behind the stacked books, to our right. Beyond that, at the back right corner of the table, a sheet of paper reads “ALBUM MUSICAL,” with the final L partially obscured by a piece of bubblegum-pink paper set askew atop the stacked books. The artist’s name appears in rust-red letters on a paper at the back left corner of the table: “Bonnard.” The rug beneath the table is dominated by a vivid, azure-blue ring. The blue ring is surrounded by a white band decorated with widely spaced, black ovals dotted with pale lemon yellow. At the center of the blue ring is a black circle dotted with abstracted rosettes made with rings of apricot orange and gray around yellow centers. At the back edge of the rug, at the top left corner of the painting, a white cat sits and brown spotted dog lies on a mustard-yellow sofa, which has a wooden arm on the end we can see. There is a tangerine-orange chair next to it, in the upper right corner of the painting, and a teal-blue block there could be a pillow. The floor between the furniture is goldenrod yellow.
Pierre Bonnard, Work Table, 1926/1937, oil on canvas, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 2006.128.12

Work Table

Pierre Bonnard · 1926/1937 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  2006.128.12

About a dozen men and women gather around three men hanging from wooden crosses, all against a deep landscape beneath a shiny gold sky in this horizontal painting. All the people we can see have pale or tanned skin. The men on the crosses wear only white loincloths, and a gold halo encircles the head of the man in the middle, Jesus. Jesus hangs with his hands and feet nailed to the cross, and a man on the ground has pierced his right side with a lance. Blood drips down his face from a ring of thorns. Four winged angels, small in scale to the rest of the people, catch the blood pouring from the nails in his hands and feet, and the wound on his side in golden chalices. The crosses to either side angle in toward Jesus, and the men are tied to them with their arms hooked backward over the crosspiece. Their legs are tied to the vertical beam of the cross, and they bleed from wounds on their thighs. Near the head of the man to our left, an angel hovers and holds up a miniature man, like a doll. The man on the cross to our right turns his head away from the demon holding out another miniature man. Across the bottom of the composition, the people in the crowd wear garments in ginger brown, cranberry and burgundy red, and olive green. Three women, two young men, and a man on horseback are tightly clustered on the ground in the left half. The woman closest to us, Mary, wears a marine-blue gown and a white head covering. She is partly slumped to one side, supported by a woman on her left, to our right, and a young man standing just behind her. The third woman kneels on Mary’s other side, near the lower left corner of the composition, with her hands clasped together. Behind the women, the horse and its elderly, bearded rider and the cleanshaven man piercing Jesus’s side with a spear both look up at Jesus. The rider touches his left eye with the index finger of that hand, and short, red rays emanate from his eyelid. Near the back end of the horse, a man holds a bucket and a long pole supporting a sponge in a U-shaped crook at the top. A cluster of eight men are gathered in the lower right half. Two are on horseback, and the rider closest to us wears peanut-brown armor and helmet. He holds a tall staff with a red pennant bearing the letters “SPQR.” Beyond the crosses, pale green hills topped with trees and bushes lead back to a town skyline painted in shades of baby and teal blue. Scenes with people, tiny in scale, are scattered across the city and landscape. There, a crowd greeting a man entering the city on a donkey is seen in the distance to our left. A group lowers a man from a cross on a hill to our right, and a man hangs from a tree along the right edge of the composition. The gold sky fills the top quarter of the scene.
Master of the Death of Saint Nicholas of Münster, Calvary, c. 1470/1480, oil on panel, Patrons' Permanent Fund, 2001.70.1

Calvary

Master of the Death of Saint Nicholas of Münster · c. 1470/1480 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  2001.70.1

A woman plays an upright piano as two boys play checkers at a table in this horizontal painting. The scene is loosely painted with areas of flat color and pattern. The people have pale, peachy skin and dark brown hair. Their facial features are painted with dots or short strokes of black. The piano is against the wall to our left. The woman wears a short-sleeved, lemon-yellow dress with a long skirt. A music book is propped on the music stand, and loosely painted objects line the top of the instrument. The wall behind the piano is patterned with white and pale yellow flowers under and around arches against a cranberry-red background. The table where the boys play is in the middle of the room. The players sit in wooden chairs and wear black and white striped jackets with white collars. The boy to our right looks at the board while resting his left cheek, closer to us, in his hand. The other boy looks on with his arms on the table in front of him. The checkerboard sits on a red and white striped cloth, which has lines of black dots in the white strips. Beneath the table is a floral rug with blue and black flowers against a red background. The border is painted loosely with leafy shapes against bright white. Beneath the area rug the floor or another carpet is garnet red with a diamond-shaped grid painted in orange. A petal-pink, upholstered chair sits in front of a tall wardrobe in the back corner of the room. A picture with two violins against a blue background hangs on the side of the furniture to our right. A chest of drawers next to the wardrobe holds a few bowls or objects and a white statue, about half human height. The statue is of a person standing with one knee bent in front of the other, one elbow tucked by the side with that hand held to the chest, and the other bent elbow raised overhead. Pictures hang on the wall around the statue, and the wallpaper there is ivory white with a dark yellow pattern. The artist signed the work in the lower right corner, “Henri Matisse.”
Henri Matisse, Pianist and Checker Players, 1924, oil on canvas, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 1985.64.25

Pianist and Checker Players

Henri Matisse · 1924 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1985.64.25

We look down onto a plaza with a sliver of a tall building rising along the left edge of the painting, a row of verdant, green trees to our right, and a row of buildings enclosing the space in the distance in this nearly square landscape painting. The peanut-brown building to our left nearly reaches the top edge of the canvas. It has three oversized, tall stories under a high, sloping roof with a slender chimney. A promenade with carriages runs in front of the tall building. In the plaza closer to us but tiny in scale, people gather in small and large groups, along the bottom edge of the composition. They are painted with dabs and short strokes of cobalt blue, butter and golden yellow, brick red, black, and white. The trees create a diagonal line running from the lower right corner into the scene, along the edge of the plaza to our right. Beyond the plaza and trees, the corners of a formal garden with sand-white walking paths stretch back to the row of buildings in the distance, which come halfway up the painting. That long line of buildings is painted with tones of light brown with rows of tall, narrow windows. The roofs are slate gray, and several cupolas and towers are spaced along its length. The buildings span the width of the painting and disappear behind the tall building to our left. Loosely painted, white, puffy clouds float across the ice-blue sky above. The artist signed and dated the work with brown paint in the lower left corner: “C. Pissarro. 1900.”
Camille Pissarro, Place du Carrousel, Paris, 1900, oil on canvas, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection, 1970.17.55

Place du Carrousel, Paris

Camille Pissarro · 1900 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1970.17.55

Eleven men, women, and children stand around a freestanding flagpole near a floating dock on a beach in this horizontal landscape painting. The scene is loosely painted, and dozens more people are gathered on the dock. The women wear dresses with long skirts in shades of charcoal gray, dark yellow, garnet red, and black, and one woman holds a muted blue parasol. The men wear suits in dark gray. A black dog stands and a white dog lies on the parchment-yellow beach near the flagpole, and the flag is white edged in blue. The dock angles away from us and to the right into the pale aquamarine-green water. Another dock in the distance lines the left third of the horizon, which comes about a third of the way up the composition. Puffy, smoky-tray clouds fill most of the blue sky above. The artist signed the lower right corner, “E. Boudin.”
Eugène Boudin, On the Jetty, c. 1869/1870, oil on wood, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection, 1970.17.13

On the Jetty

Eugène Boudin · c. 1869/1870 · oil on wood ·  Accession ID  1970.17.13

The image is a sketch of three men shown from the back. Each man is standing with a slight forward lean, their arms resting beside them or tucked in. The men wear top hats and long coats. The men's facial features and hair are not visible. The background is plain, emphasizing the sketched figures.
Edgar Degas, Three Studies of Ludovic Halévy Standing, c. 1880, charcoal on tan laid paper, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 1985.64.88

Three Studies of Ludovic Halévy Standing

Edgar Degas · c. 1880 · charcoal on tan laid paper ·  Accession ID  1985.64.88

This painting depicts a green landscape under a blue sky. Trees fill the grassy landscape, and a small blue stream winds across the grass on the left side, reflecting light. A hill with small rocks and light green trees rises up on the right. The sky is a bright blue color, with a few wispy white clouds.
Gustave Courbet, La Bretonnerie in the Department of Indre, 1856, oil on canvas, Gift of the W. Averell Harriman Foundation in memory of Marie N. Harriman, 1972.9.8

La Bretonnerie in the Department of Indre

Gustave Courbet · 1856 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1972.9.8

The image shows a street scene of a town square with various classic European buildings, trees, and people in period clothing engaged in activities. A grand building with steep, dark roof and chimneys stands out on the horizon. The painting is detailed with precise brushstrokes and features a warm color palette of ochres, blues, and greens.
François Etienne Villeret, Rue de Rivoli and Pavillon Marsan, watercolor over graphite on wove paper, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 1995.47.69

Rue de Rivoli and Pavillon Marsan

François Etienne Villeret · · watercolor over graphite on wove paper ·  Accession ID  1995.47.69

This drawing shows three identical men in profile, facing the left, wearing high top hats and long coats. They are all leaning forward slightly with their hands in their pockets. The sketch is done in a loose drawing style, with little detail visible in the men’s faces. The background is plain, off-white paper.
Edgar Degas, Three Studies of Ludovic Halévy Standing, c. 1880, charcoal counterproof on buff wove paper, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 1985.64.167

Three Studies of Ludovic Halévy Standing

Edgar Degas · c. 1880 · charcoal counterproof on buff wove paper ·  Accession ID  1985.64.167