Provenance

John Hope

1737 - 1784

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The limp, dead bodies of a swan, rabbit, and three birds along with a live bird and a small dog are arranged on and near a low stone step in the bottom left corner of this horizontal painting. To our left and close to us, the white swan lies on its back on the step with its wings partly extended. Its long neck drapes toward us over the rabbit’s body, the bird’s head turned to our left. The rabbit has tawny-brown fur and lies stretched out on its side, its belly facing away from us. Tucked in the lower left corner of the painting, a fowl has a round body with cream-white and chestnut-brown feathers. The beaks of two more dead birds peek out from the shadows beyond the rabbit’s body. Behind the dead animals and taking up the left third of the painting, the square base of a fawn-brown stone column nearly reaches the top edge of the canvas. The front face is carved with a relief showing a woman and man huddled together as they look down in front of them, seemingly toward the swan. A yellow flower with narrow, tapered petals hangs over the upper left corner of the base and lavender-purple flowers, perhaps roses, peek around the base from our right. To our right of the dead animals, a bird with black, smoke-gray, and white feathers stands facing away from us with its wings flared back. Its emerald-green and gold head gleams in the stark light illuminating the scene from the lower left. It turns its head toward a small dog in the lower right corner. The dog has white and pale, honey-brown fur, a round face, blunt nose, and sable-brown floppy ears. The dog’s back half is cut off by the edge of the painting, and it seems to lean back as it looks toward the bird. A grapevine with broad, curling leaves winds into the painting behind and above the dog, ending with scrolling tendrils at the center of the composition. The leaves are fern green, some fading to a pale sage green or tan, and edged in brown. One leaf over the dog’s head is crimson red and tan, and a glistening cluster of green grapes lies on the ground near the dog’s front paws, to our left. Beyond the live bird and dog, a deep landscape opens up with statues lining a stepped walkway that leads to a rectangular reflecting pool. Several black and white birds the size of ducks stand in the shadowed background near the pool and more birds fly overhead. Backlit by the amber-gold sunset, tall trees with thin black trunks and caramel-brown leaves line the path leading to a tall narrow structure at the water’s edge. The golden sunset fades to a pale blue sky with drifting clouds over low mountains in the deep distance.
Jan Weenix, Still Life with Goose and Game before a Country Estate, c. 1685, oil on canvas, Patrons' Permanent Fund, 2004.39.1

Still Life with Goose and Game before a Country Estate

Jan Weenix · c. 1685 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  2004.39.1

More than a dozen light-skinned men, women, and children eat, drink, talk, and make music around a dancing couple under an arbor in this horizontal painting. Most of the people are dressed in muted tones of green, gray, and black. The patio-like space is enclosed by a railing along the back and a half wall to our right. Sage-green vines and leaves covering the roof-like trellis hang down. Ten men and women sit or stand closely around a long table along the left, next to the exterior wall of a red brick building. A woman sitting in a wooden chair at the end of the table closest to us wears a flax-yellow gown with a wide white collar and a starched white cap. She smiles up at the child she braces in her lap. The child stands and holds a toy in both hands and looks over one shoulder to our right. The child wears a carrot-orange gown with a white pinafore. Two men lean out of open windows at the far end of the brick building, and the people along the table drink, smile, or look on as a man in the center leads a woman by the hand to an open spot under the arbor. He wears a charcoal-gray suit, and a muted pink cap is pulled low over his eyes. He has a long, hooked nose, and light glints off teeth in his smiling mouth. The woman is pulled behind the man, so she stands flat-footed to our left of him. She faces our right but turns to looks at us from the corners of her dark eyes. Her light brown hair is gathered at the back of her head under a pearl-lined covering. She wears a dusty rose-pink gown with a sheer black shawl around her shoulders and white apron at her waist. Beyond the back rail, a man smiles widely as he balances a covered basket containing a gray chicken with one hand on his head. Nearby, a boy on our side of the rail talks with a little girl across the railing, who smiles back. Two men and a woman wearing a black head covering talk a short distance away. Close to us, a man, woman, and child in the lower right corner sit near two young men perched on the half wall, one playing a violin and the other a flute. A gleaming pewter ewer, a wooden barrel with a square opening, a white pipe, a terracotta bowl, broken eggs, a spoon, and an overturned pail of flowers lie scattered across the foreground of the patio. The artist signed and dated the lower left, “JSteen. 1663,” with the J and S overlapping.
Jan Steen, The Dancing Couple, 1663, oil on canvas, Widener Collection, 1942.9.81

The Dancing Couple

Jan Steen · 1663 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1942.9.81

A man, woman, several children, a dog, and a chicken work and play outside a two-story, partially vine-covered, brown brick house in this vertical painting. All the people have peachy, light skin. We look slightly down onto a courtyard enclosed by the house to our right and a wall along the back of the yard, a short distance from us. To our right and closest to us, laundry dries on a line over a pile of branches, cast off bricks, and a wooden shovel near the lower right corner. A young girl wearing a white bonnet, a royal-blue shirt, and a long, harvest-yellow skirt sits on the dirt ground, leaning toward a little boy holding the paws of a black and white dog that stands on its hind legs. A broom leans against a fenced-in chicken coop behind the boy, and a bunch of carrots rests on the flat roof of the coop. Beyond the children, a woman sits hunched on a rushed chair, cleaning mussels taken from a wooden bucket and placed in an earthenware dish. A bearded man leans in the open doorway in the courtyard wall looking at the woman and a young girl helps a toddler stand nearby, as a chicken pecks at the ground. The roof slouches atop the brick house along the top edge of the canvas to our right, and the peak of another roof and trees rise above the courtyard wall. Fluffy white clouds float across the bright blue sky in the upper right corner. The artist signed and dated the work in dark paint in the lower center: “Av. Ostade 1673.”
Adriaen van Ostade, The Cottage Dooryard, 1673, oil on canvas, Widener Collection, 1942.9.48

The Cottage Dooryard

Adriaen van Ostade · 1673 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1942.9.48