Pierre Decourcelle

French, 1856 - 1926

Explore Selected Works

Louis Gabriel Moreau the Elder, Mill with Bridge and Figures, watercolor over graphite on laid paper, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1963.15.21

Mill with Bridge and Figures

Louis Gabriel Moreau the Elder · · watercolor over graphite on laid paper ·  Accession ID  1963.15.21

A man and two women standing near a bar nearly fill this vertical painting. Though made with oil on cardboard, the paint is applied in thin strokes, so parts of the painting look more like a drawing, and the tan of the cardboard is visible in many areas. Shown from the thighs up at the center of the composition, the man stands with his back to us, looking away from us to our left, almost in profile. The camel-brown of the cardboard acts as the color of his jacket and the skin of his face, which are otherwise delineated with cobalt-blue and violet-purple lines. He wears a dark bowler hat, and a white cigarette dangles in his lips. A few scribbled black lines could suggest a mustache. Hands thrust into his pockets, he looks down at the bar, which a runs along left edge of the composition. Squeezed between the man and the glasses on the bar, a woman wearing a teal-blue feather boa leans one elbow on the bar and looks back at the man from the corners of her eyes. Her skin is rose-pink and she has curly red hair. Her arched, thin eyebrows and snub nose are set in a round face with a double chin, and her crimson-red lips are pursed. She wears a ruby-red dress or coat and a turquoise-blue, wide-brimmed hat with bubblegum-pink ribbons or feathers. Two small, stemmed glasses sit on the bar in front of the man and woman. Behind the bar, along the left edge of the painting, a man wears a dark vest over a shirt with sky-blue sleeves. A light cloth lies over the shoulder closer to us and he has dark hair. The rest of his features are lost behind the woman’s hat. To our right, beyond the man’s shoulder, a woman stands with her body facing us as she tips back and looks off to our right. She wears a long, black tie over a pale blue, high-necked shirt. One hand is tucked into a pocket on the front of her jacket, which is streaked with mint green over the brown cardboard. Loosely painted vertical stripes below her waist suggests she wears a skirt, indicating this is a woman, though it might otherwise be difficult to tell. She wears a low, royal-blue cap with an emerald-green feather curling up from the back over a cloud of yellow hair. Only the gray bowler hat, ruddy skin around the ear, and a teal-green jacket of a fifth person are visible between that woman and the right edge of the composition. The wall at the back of the space is tan with shell-pink streaks, and a sign with a red triangle against a turquoise background is cropped by the right edge of the painting. The scene is sketchily painted so features are outlined with blue or brown and filled in with streaks of pale color. The artist inscribed the painting in the lower right corner, “pour Metenier d'apres son Alfred la Guigne HTLautrec,” with the HTL overlapping to create a monogram.
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Alfred la Guigne, 1894, oil on cardboard, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.220

Alfred la Guigne

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec · 1894 · oil on cardboard ·  Accession ID  1963.10.220

François-André Vincent, Park of an Italian Villa, 1774/1775, black chalk with brown wash heightened with white gouache on laid paper, with the remains of a framing line in brown ink, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1963.15.12

Park of an Italian Villa

François-André Vincent · 1774/1775 · black chalk with brown wash heightened with white gouache on laid paper, with the remains of a framing line in brown ink ·  Accession ID  1963.15.12

Shown from the waist up, a man sits facing us on the far side of a ledge or counter looking down at an open book in this loosely painted, vertical portrait. The man’s pale skin is flushed pink. He leans both forearms onto the ledge so his shoulders hunch forward. His head tips slightly to our left, and he reads with gathered, dark brows. He has a round-tipped nose and full, bushy beard. His black, wavy hair and beard are touched with lighter shades of bronze, especially at the temples. He holds a white pipe to his lips with one hand, and tendrils of smoke curl from the burning embers. He wears a black coat, and a slip of white cuff is visible on the hand we see. The other hand is tucked behind the first. The pages of the book are bright white, and the ledge surface is painted with strokes of celery green and ochre yellow. A swirling black form in the lower left corner of the painting is difficult to interpret. The background is painted with loose brushstrokes in shades of sky and cobalt blue and charcoal gray. The artist signed the painting near the lower left corner, “A. Renoir.”
Auguste Renoir, Claude Monet, 1872, oil on canvas, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 1985.64.35

Claude Monet

Auguste Renoir · 1872 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1985.64.35

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, La Goulue and Her Sister, c. 1892, oil à l'essence on gelatin silver print mounted on board, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.68

La Goulue and Her Sister

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec · c. 1892 · oil à l'essence on gelatin silver print mounted on board ·  Accession ID  1963.10.68

We look along a street lined with cool white and cream-yellow buildings and a tall church steeple in this vertical painting. A four-story building stands closest to us, filling the left side and reaching off the top edge. The ground floor is painted shamrock green, and the three windows on the floors above have low black railings. The side of the building facing us is tinged with butter yellow. A few olive-green shutters line the left edge, and several colorful rectangles on its first two floors suggest posters. The building faces a sliver of an equally tall building on our right. Two delicate streetlights stand on either side of the street, which angles sharply into the distance to our right. The rest of the buildings along it are different heights with copper or sage-green roofs. The church is the third building down from us, and it takes up most of the rest of the block. Tall, pointed, arched windows painted in black and brown line its side. More dark windows pierce the steeple, which rises against the muted laurel-green sky. A handful of people stand near a tall building on the corner beyond the church, and wide chimneys studded with coral-colored chimney pots rise in the distance. The artist signed the lower left, “Maurice Utrillo. V.”
Maurice Utrillo, The Church of Saint-Séverin, c. 1913, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.222

The Church of Saint-Séverin

Maurice Utrillo · c. 1913 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1963.10.222