Provenance

Napoleon I, Emperor of the French

Bonaparte, Napoleon
Buonaparte, Napoleon

French, 1769 - 1821

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A barefoot man wearing tattered clothing, with his hands clasped at his chest, kneels at the feet of an old, bearded man in this almost square painting. The pair is flanked by five people on our right and a man, boy, and calf on our left. All the people have pale skin. The kneeling man faces our right in profile and tilts his head up to look at the old man who embraces him. The younger man has shaggy, dark brown hair and a heavy five o'clock shadow. A small white dog jumps at his dirty, bare feet. The old man has a long gray beard and wears a black skullcap over gray hair. His voluminous dusty rose-pink cloak drapes over a teal-blue robe. To our right of the pair are a child, a woman, and three men. Some look at the embracing men while the others look at each other. At the front of that grouping, two men have brown hair and wispy mustaches. One wears a golden-yellow tunic and holds a silver tray piled with a shimmering sky-blue and pale pink garment, a bright white shirt, and a pair of sandals. Just beyond him and looking into his face, the second man wears gray with a dark green cloak draped over one shoulder. He holds up a gold ring with a ruby-red stone. To our left of the embracing men, a smiling blond boy leads the calf into the scene. Just beyond him is a thin, muscular man carrying an ax over one shoulder as he gazes down at the boy. The scene is set in a courtyard with walls that extend back on either side. Billowing putty-gray and white clouds fill the background.
Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, The Return of the Prodigal Son, 1667/1670, oil on canvas, Gift of the Avalon Foundation, 1948.12.1

The Return of the Prodigal Son

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo · 1667/1670 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1948.12.1

One tall, rectangular panel is flanked by arched panels to each side, all set within a carved, painted, gilded wooden frame. The central panel shows two people at the foot of a wooden cross, to which a man is nailed, and the panels to each side are each occupied by a single person. All the people have pale skin and are shown against landscapes with rocky outcroppings along a river that extends into the deep distance. At the center of the middle panel, the man hangs from the cross from nails in his hands and one nail driven through his overlapping feet. He is nude except for the white loincloth wrapped around his hips, which falls in fluttering ripples alongside his right leg, on our left. Blood drips down his forehead from where a ring of thorns encircles his shoulder-length, chestnut-brown hair. His head tilts to his right, our left, and his eyes are closed or downcast. Blood also drips from his hands and feet, and from a slit over his right ribcage. The woman standing to our left of the cross wears a navy-blue robe edged in gold that covers her head and drapes to her ankles above bare feet. Her head tips down to our right, and she holds her hands clasped loosely, fingers intertwined, at her waist. The person standing to our right of the cross wears a cobalt-blue robe under a vivid, scarlet-red cloak. He has blond curly hair and delicate features, like the woman. With arms nearly straight, he holds his interlaced fingers with palms facing down, close to his body. He looks up at the man on the cross. Low hills dotted with flowers and plants separate the people from a river that runs between rocky hills and outcroppings. Stone buildings line the bank beyond a bridge spanning the river in the distance, and three boats sail near the horizon line, which comes halfway up the composition. The hills and mountains look green and then blue in the deep distance under a sky that fades from nearly white along the horizon to pale, topaz blue along the top edge of the panel, which is also lined with clouds. In the panel to our left, a balding man with gray hair leans on a wooden staff like a crutch, nearly in profile facing our right. He also is nude aside from a slate-gray cloth that wraps around his hips. He holds his loosely fisted right hand up to his chest. A lion stands in front of a cave entrance behind the man. In the panel to our right, a woman wears a mauve-pink dress under a pine-green cloak. She holds her hands clasped with fingers interlaced at her abdomen. A small, gold-colored jar with handles sits on a rock to our left. Both the man and woman in the side panels look up toward the man on the cross. The landscape behind those in the side panels enclose each scene with rocky outcroppings that seem closer to us than the landscape in the central panel. More plants and flowers, and also trees, dot each landscape and soften the caramel-brown boulders with touches of moss and emerald green. The frame encasing the panels is carved and gilded gold around strips of aquamarine blue, which are painted with swirling tendrils, vines, urns, shells, animals, and some mask-like faces.
Pietro Perugino, The Crucifixion with the Virgin, Saint John, Saint Jerome, and Saint Mary Magdalene, c. 1482/1485, oil on panel transferred to canvas, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1937.1.27.a-c

The Crucifixion with the Virgin, Saint John, Saint Jerome, and Saint Mary Magdalene

Pietro Perugino · c. 1482/1485 · oil on panel transferred to canvas ·  Accession ID  1937.1.27.a-c

A man stands, leaning on a staff used like a crutch, in a deep, rocky landscape in this round-topped vertical painting. The cleanshaven man has tanned skin and sparse gray hair. He is nude aside from a slate-gray cloth that wraps around his hips. The hand not bracing the crutch is held in a loose fist at his chest. A few plants grow and bloom along the bottom of the panel. The dirt path on which the man stands winds through low, grass-covered mounds to a cave opening at the base of a tall, steep cliff face. A lion stands on the path between the man and the cave. An owl perches in the bare, spike-like branches of a spindly tree growing to our right of the man.
Pietro Perugino, The Crucifixion with the Virgin, Saint John, Saint Jerome, and Saint Mary Magdalene [left panel], c. 1482/1485, oil on panel transferred to canvas, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1937.1.27.a

The Crucifixion with the Virgin, Saint John, Saint Jerome, and Saint Mary Magdalene [left panel]

Pietro Perugino · c. 1482/1485 · oil on panel transferred to canvas ·  Accession ID  1937.1.27.a

A young woman with pale skin and flushed cheeks stands in a landscape looking to our upper left in this round-topped vertical painting. Her body faces us in the center of the scene. Her fingers are interlaced at her waist, and her head tips slightly to our left. Honey-brown hair cascades over her shoulders, and her hazel eyes roll up under thin brows. She has a short nose and a small, pale pink mouth. A translucent scarf is tied around the full-length, pine-green mantle that drapes across her shoulders and wraps around the V-neck of her rose-red robe. A wine-red inset fills the neckline, and a matching belt is tied around her waist. She stands barefoot on the dirt ground, which is scattered with pebbles. Plants grow and bloom, including a blue iris, in shallow water along the bottom edge of the composition. A lidded pitcher with a narrow neck and scrolling handles sits on a flat rock next to her right knee. Taller, peanut-brown rock formations pile up beyond her under a powder-blue sky. Tawny-brown and sage-green trees, leafy plants, and shrubs sprout among the rocks. Beyond the woman is an open gate in a wooden fence built into one of the rock formations to our right, and sage-green hills dotted with moss-green trees roll out along the left side of the painting.
Pietro Perugino, The Crucifixion with the Virgin, Saint John, Saint Jerome, and Saint Mary Magdalene [right panel], c. 1482/1485, oil on panel transferred to canvas, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1937.1.27.c

The Crucifixion with the Virgin, Saint John, Saint Jerome, and Saint Mary Magdalene [right panel]

Pietro Perugino · c. 1482/1485 · oil on panel transferred to canvas ·  Accession ID  1937.1.27.c

A man hangs from a wooden cross at the top center of this vertical painting, with a woman standing at the foot of the cross to our left and a man to our right, all in front of a deep landscape with mountains along a river. All the people have light skin. The feet of the man on the cross, Jesus, line up with the tops of the heads of the people standing below. Jesus hangs by a nail driven through each palm, and his overlapping feet are nailed into a short platform that angles downward. He has shoulder-length brown hair and a short brown beard. His head tips forward, and his eyes are downcast or closed. He has a straight nose, high cheekbones, and his lips are closed. Blood trickles down his forehead from a ring of thorns around his head, from the nails in his hands and feet, and from a short gash over his right ribs, on our left. A white loincloth is wrapped around his hips, and the end of it flutters as if in a breeze to our left. The man’s body is lean but muscular. A slip of paper with the letters “INRI” has been affixed to a small panel on the cross above Jesus’s head. Below and to our left of the cross, a woman stands with her head bowed, looking down with her hands clasped in prayer. Her hair is covered with a tan-colored veil and she wears a gold-edged, navy-blue robe that covers her head and body. She and the cleanshaven, blond man standing to our right of the cross both have bare feet. The man looks up at the cross with his lips parted. His fingers are intertwined and then flipped, palms-down, with his arms straight. His raspberry pink-robe falls over one shoulder and around his hips, over a topaz-blue, ankle-length tunic. The dirt-packed ground on which they stand is lined along the bottom edge of the panel with plants and flowers. The golden-brown land dips beyond the people, leading down to a river that winds into the distance. A castle-like structure perches on cliff-like outcroppings high along the left edge of the painting, and buildings at the foot of that outcropping line the river. Two people walk and one person fishes off a bridge near the town. A few boats, one with full sails unfurled and another possibly with oars out to row, float in the river beyond, which is flanked in the deep distance by mountains painted blue in the haze. The horizon comes about halfway up the composition, crossing the painting just beneath Jesus’s feet. The sky above deepens from pale yellow along the horizon to robin’s egg blue where a few wispy clouds create streaks along the top edge.
Pietro Perugino, The Crucifixion with the Virgin, Saint John, Saint Jerome, and Saint Mary Magdalene [middle panel], c. 1482/1485, oil on panel transferred to canvas, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1937.1.27.b

The Crucifixion with the Virgin, Saint John, Saint Jerome, and Saint Mary Magdalene [middle panel]

Pietro Perugino · c. 1482/1485 · oil on panel transferred to canvas ·  Accession ID  1937.1.27.b