Provenance

Francis Thomas de Grey Cowper, 7th earl Cowper and 7th baron Lucas

Lucas, Francis Thomas de Grey Cowper, 7th earl Cowper and 7th baron

British, 1834 - 1905

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A woman and nude child, both with pale skin, sit in front of a deep landscape in this vertical painting. Shown from about the knees up, the woman’s body is angled slightly to our right, and she supports the baby under his bottom with her left hand, on our right. She wears a long-sleeved, crimson-red dress with a sheer, nearly translucent fabric around her shoulders. Fern-green drapery, nearly matching the color of the grassy landscape, is gathered behind her hips, and a deep lapis-blue cloth lies across her lap. Her blond hair is pulled back. She has a straight nose, rosy cheeks, and her pink lips are closed. Her head tilts to our left, and she gazes down and to our right with brown eyes. Her right hand, on our left, rests in her lap, and she holds the baby with her other hand. The blond baby half sits, half stands on the woman’s lap so one foot rests on the hand in the woman’s lap. He reaches his arms around her neck and turns to look over his left shoulder, also gazing down and to our right. Thin, gold halos above their heads are barely visible against the pale blue sky. An expanse of green grass extends behind the pair leading to a cluster of trees to our left and buildings on a distant hill to our right. Hazy blue hills line the horizon in the distance below a blue, nearly cloudless sky.
Raphael, The Small Cowper Madonna, c. 1505, oil on panel, Widener Collection, 1942.9.57

The Small Cowper Madonna

Raphael · c. 1505 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  1942.9.57

A woman holds and looks toward a nude, young child, who sits on her lap and looks out at us, smiling, in this vertical painting. They both have pale skin and thin, gold halos floating above their heads. The clear sky behind them deepens from teal blue along the top edge to ice blue behind their shoulders. To our right, the woman is shown from the lap up with her body angled to our left, toward the child she holds. She looks down at the child almost in profile with dark eyes under faint brows. She has a long, straight nose, smooth cheeks, and her petal-pink lips are closed. Her blond hair is braided and twisted back from her face under a sheer, gold-trimmed, white veil, that flutters as if in a breeze. Her rose-pink dress has a wide neckline and the elbow-length sleeve we can see falls loosely over a tighter, spring-green sleeve. The neckline is trimmed with gold decorations and an inscription: “MDVIII.R.V.PIN.” A peacock-blue robe drapes over the shoulder farther from us and across her lap. That arm wraps around the child’s back, and she holds her other hand to her chest, near where the child grips the neckline of her dress. The child sits on a white pillow with one leg flung across the woman’s lap and the other, closer to us, dangling between her knees. Slightly slouched, his body is angled to our right, toward the woman, but he looks over his shoulder at us with dark eyes. He has faint eyebrows, a delicate nose, a dimpled chin, flushed cheeks, and his pale pink lips curl into a smile. He has wispy blond hair and pudgy, toddler-like cheeks and body. His other hand rests on the pillow between his legs. A band of gauzy, sheer fabric decorated with gold stripes wraps around one shoulder and around his upper chest.
Raphael, The Niccolini-Cowper Madonna, 1508, oil on panel, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1937.1.25

The Niccolini-Cowper Madonna

Raphael · 1508 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  1937.1.25

A sinewy older man, his pale skin mostly exposed, sits on a stone low to the ground facing a table on our right in the center of this vertical painting. His gray hair is cropped short, and he has a graying, long beard. He faces our right in profile, and has a hooked nose, deep-set eyes, and the eyebrow we can see is bushy. The man's bare chest has a red wound flecked with darker red gashes. A smooth and shiny, rose-pink cloth drapes across his thighs and falls around his bare knees, its soft folds highlighted in white. A translucent white undergarment peeks out from beneath it. In the man’s left hand, farther from us, he holds the bottom of a wooden cross against the pages of an open book, which is propped up on a skull on a wooden table. The crucifix is as tall as the book. An hourglass sits on the corner of the table just beyond that hand. He clutches a palm-sized stone in his right arm, which is slightly bent and held down by his side. His legs are bent and cramped under his body as he sits on the low stone. A small lion lies in the shadows under the table. To our left and directly behind the man looms a brown, rocky arch with two wooden slats, like a fence, across its opening. Another rocky formation fills the space through the archway, leaving a sliver of blue sky while juniper-green bushes grow around its edges. To our right, a rolling wilderness stretches away to the horizon, with soft foliage of kelly green giving way to steep hills in soft blues. Hazy white squares suggest a cluster of buildings on the distant hillside. Pale gray and white clouds float across a sky that deepens from pale pink along the horizon to vivid blue along the top edge.
Veronese, Benedetto Caliari, Saint Jerome in the Wilderness, c. 1575/1585, oil on canvas, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1961.9.47

Saint Jerome in the Wilderness

Veronese, Benedetto Caliari · c. 1575/1585 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1961.9.47