Harold Irving Pratt

American, 1877 - 1939

Explore Selected Works

A woman sits facing us on a stone bench with her hands in prayer over the head of a baby who sleeps, propped up between the woman’s knees in this vertical painting. The wood panel on which this is painted is framed by carved, curling gold vines encircling two small people in the upper corners. All the people have pale skin, and plate-like, shiny gold halos seem to rest atop the woman and child’s heads. The woman tilts her head to her left, our right, to look toward the baby with lowered eyes. Her skin is smooth and a translucent white cloth covers her head. She wears a cherry-red dress under a teal-blue cloak that falls in folds over her arms and legs, and pools around her shins and feet. She steeples her elongated fingers to touch in front of her chest. The baby wears a forest-green robe and has bare feet. He props his chin on crossed forearms, which rest on the woman’s left leg, to our right. He has blond, curly hair and delicate features. The woman sits on a stone bench with a base decorated with tan designs against a vivid orange background. Tufts of grass grow in a few areas near her feet and the bench in the dirt ground. A cloud of crimson-red, swirling forms, perhaps blossoms, behind the woman is flanked to each side by leafy, dark green bushes bearing green, round fruit. In a roundel made by the scrolling gold vine in the upper left is occupied by a winged angel facing our right in profile. The angel wears a plum-purple robe over a pine-green garment, and holds up the first two fingers of one hand, palm facing out. In the roundel in top right corner, a woman wearing a dark purple robe covering her head and body over a ruby-red dress sits facing our left in profile. She rests one hand on a book on a wooden desk in front of her and the other hand is raised, palm facing out. The background behind the roundels and the pair below is midnight blue.
Cosmè Tura, Madonna and Child in a Garden, c. 1460/1470, tempera (and possibly oil) on poplar panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1952.5.29

Madonna and Child in a Garden

Cosmè Tura · c. 1460/1470 · tempera (and possibly oil) on poplar panel ·  Accession ID  1952.5.29

About a dozen women, babies, and men gather in small groups across interior spaces with a bedroom to one side and a covered space to the other in this vertical panel painting. The women have nearly white-colored skin, and the men and children have pale skin, sometimes tinged with gray. The bed spans the left two-thirds of the composition. A woman lies under a vibrant red coverlet and white sheets pulled up to her chest. A white veil covers her head, forehead, and neck, and she wears a white, long-sleeved gown. Her shoulders rest up on pillows, and her head is surrounded by a shiny gold halo. A pale face by the woman’s feet looks through an opening at the base of the bed. Two women on the far side of the bed wear green or blue dresses and white head coverings. They both attend to a swaddled blond baby, who also has a gold halo. The wall behind the bed is patterned with an intricate geometric design in grass green and brown. The space above the bed is shiny gold punched with a leafy pattern. The wall is capped with an entablature held up with corbels. A balcony space rises to the left, and a structure with arched openings is to our right. A deep bench runs parallel to the bed along the bottom edge of the painting, closer to us. A balding man with a gray beard sits there and writes, brows deeply furrowed, on a scroll braced on one knee. If complete, writing on the scroll would read “NOMEN EST IOHANNES.” He wears a blue robe under a pale pink cloak, and he has a halo. A man standing just to our right of the seated man gestures toward the first with both hands. This second man has a brown beard and long hair and wears a marigold orange cloak over red robes. A bearded man with gray hair standing behind him wears leaf green and looks to our right. Four men and a haloed baby crowd in the covered space to our right. The man wearing green is shown again, now holding the nude baby. The man with brown hair now wears white vestments and cuts foreskin of the baby’s penis. Two other two men look on, and a sliver of an orange cap indicates that a fifth person is at the back of the crowd. The covered space is ivory-white and has a balcony above the taller, lower level. The whole panel is edged by gold patterned with a clover-like design.
Giovanni Baronzio, The Birth, Naming, and Circumcision of Saint John the Baptist, c. 1335, tempera on panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1952.5.68

The Birth, Naming, and Circumcision of Saint John the Baptist

Giovanni Baronzio · c. 1335 · tempera on panel ·  Accession ID  1952.5.68

Bibliography

1939

  • New York Times 22 May 1939:17:1 [obituary]