Provenance

Gustav Rochlitz

German, born 1889

Explore Selected Works

To our right in this vibrantly colored, stylized, nearly square painting, a woman with light, peach-colored skin and chestnut-brown hair sits slumped along a table as she sleeps, her head resting on one extended arm. The lilac-purple tabletop has round forms representing fruit scattered around a potted plant. Many of the forms are outlined with gray and filled in with mostly flat areas of color in mint and sage green, icy blue, coral red, orange, and lemon yellow. The tabletop curves around its edges and the surface is vivid purple, while the skirt and legs of the table are pale ginger brown. The woman’s head rests facing us on her bent right arm, that hand dangling over the front edge of the table. She rests her other hand, closer to us, near the crook of her elbow. She wears a white, blousy top with rows of navy-blue zigzags on the shoulder and elongated dots on the sleeves, and a light, mint-green skirt. Her brown hair seems to be pulled back and gathered into bunches of curving waves. Her stylized eyes, nose, and mouth are drawn simply with gray lines. The round orange, peach, and yellow fruit on the table are scattered near her arm and across the table to the other side, close to a plant in a brown clay pot. The plant has shoots of long, curving stems with vibrant spruce-green leaves. Two more plants are behind the woman near the back wall, in front a rectangular opening over the woman that could be a window or mirror. The glass is painted with streaks of baby blue and pale magenta pink around a field of white, and is outlined with a band of sunshine yellow and then scarlet red. The wall around it is also painted with watercolor-like, soft fields of pale blue and pink. The floor under the table and to our left is a flat field of caramel brown. Behind the table and to our left, forms suggest a wooden chair and a blue and white ceramic pot on a tall, spindly stand. In the lower left corner of the canvas, the artist signed and dated the work with dark red paint: “40 Henri Matisse.”
Henri Matisse, Still Life with Sleeping Woman, 1940, oil on canvas, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 1985.64.26

Still Life with Sleeping Woman

Henri Matisse · 1940 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1985.64.26

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

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 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