Richard Green

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Two roosters, a rabbit, and three small birds hang from the top of this vertical still life painting, so the heads of one white rooster and the rabbit come to rest on a dark stone ledge, about a third of the way up the composition. To our left, the tawny-brown rabbit’s nose faces us as the head rests on an azure-blue purse with silver lining. A pair of scissors is tucked behind the strap, which falls down over the ledge. To our right, the head of the rooster curves away with its red coxcomb coming toward us. A black fly rests on the rooster’s comb. The black tail feathers of another rooster arc out behind it, near the upper right corner of the painting. In front of the rabbit's bound, hind legs is a small bird with puffed, silvery-gray feathers, and one black leg tied up with a dark cord. To our left are two more small birds, one with gray, cream, and tan feathers, the other with cream, golden orange, and lapis blue. These two are secured with their beaks pointing upward. Two white and scarlet-red caps, falcon’s hoods, are strung up by white ribbon near the pair of birds. Below the ledge is a carved scene with nude or nearly nude people, but this area is mostly in shadow. Behind the animals is a dark, nearly black wall.
Willem van Aelst, Still Life with Dead Game, 1661, oil on canvas, Pepita Milmore Memorial Fund, 1982.36.1

Still Life with Dead Game

Willem van Aelst · 1661 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1982.36.1

Sixteen men, women, and children sit on or walk among seven horses against a landscape with tall, narrow trees, buildings, and distant mountains under a vivid blue sky in this horizontal painting. In the lower left corner, a man and woman approach the group, which are arrayed across a dirt ground. The man carries a large basket with chickens over one arm and doffs his hat with his other hand. Just behind him, the woman carries a flat-bottomed, wide basket of fruit and vegetables balanced on her head. Some of the men in the main group wear wide-brimmed, feathered hats, long coats in shades of peanut brown, black, and scarlet red, and knee-length pants over stockings. The two other women wear gold-trimmed dresses in shimmering orchid pink or sapphire blue. Several of the men and women ride or prepare to ride horses, which range in shades of brown, gray, white, and black. Nine dogs with brown, white, or black fur frolic, stand, or lie among the horses. One boy pours from a jug into a stemmed glass with a flaring bowl, held by a man holding a curling hunting horn. Just beyond this pair, another man, wearing black and sitting on a horse, blows into a curving horn held up in one hand, while his other hand is planted on his hip. All the people have pale pink skin except for two men. One, to our right, is possibly of short stature and he has an olive complexion. He wears a crimson-red jacket and holds a falcon on one gloved hand. The second man has brown skin and holds the reins of a gray horse near the right edge of the composition. Near the lower right corner of the painting, a potted miniature orange tree sits on a ledge next to a peacock who perches nearby. A second peacock’s head peers out from behind the ledge. A fountain just behind the group at the center has water pouring from a stylized fish’s mouth. A sculpted woman riding the fish holds up a long object while water spouts in thin streams from her breasts. Another statue stands between two tall, spear-like trees to our left. To our right, about two dozen people look onto the scene below from a rooftop terrace on a section of the building rising up along the right edge of the painting. There, a band of musicians plays while guests dine at a small table with a peacock-shaped pie, as two more people bring out trays of food. On the front face of that structure, a man and woman talk on a balcony, as a monkey eating an orange perches on the banister. A grassy lawn or garden stretches back to a large manor house, which is hazy in the distance to our right. The horizon comes about a quarter of the way up this composition, and the sky above has bright white and flint-gray clouds against a brilliant blue sky. The overlapping letters “DG” are inscribed on the rump of a horse to our left, near the fountain. Painted in red in the lower right corner, the letters “PHILS” are entwined in a monogram next to a “W.”
Philips Wouwerman, The Departure for the Hunt, c. 1665/1668, oil on panel, The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund, in honor of Earl A. Powell III, Director of the National Gallery of Art (1992-2019), 2019.2.1

The Departure for the Hunt

Philips Wouwerman · c. 1665/1668 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  2019.2.1

Adriaen Coorte, Still Life with a Hanging Bunch of Grapes, Two Medlars, and a Butterfly, 1687, oil on canvas, The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund, 2020.16.1

Still Life with a Hanging Bunch of Grapes, Two Medlars, and a Butterfly

Adriaen Coorte · 1687 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  2020.16.1

Moonlight falls across several masted ships near a rocky shoreline in this horizontal painting. The sky fills the top three-quarters of the picture. A veil of slate-gray clouds is lit to pearl white around the crisp, full moon at the center of the composition. Patches of denim-blue sky are seen through breaks in the blanket of clouds. Moonlight reflects down the center of rippling, silvery-gray water that laps against a beach close to us, along the bottom edge of the painting. A tent is set up in the lower left corner of the composition. There, two women and one man stand looking at a glowing fire next to the tent. One woman holds a basket on her head, the other tucks a flat basket under one arm. The man stands between the two women, and a fourth man crouches near the fire, his back to us. In the opening of the tent, another woman kneels over a large bowl as she looks at the fire. A fifth person, a man, gazes at the fire as he sits smoking a long-stemmed pipe on a boulder. At the foot of the boulders, a man lies back against some bundles, one arm thrown up over his head. A dog curls up next to his hip. Not far from the sleeping man and in the center of the foreground, a man carries several long wooden objects, possibly oars, over one shoulder while a dog beyond him barks at the lapping surf. The beach curves like a C away from us, along the left. At the point of the curve in the middle distance, a structure like a city wall and gate jut out to the water’s edge. More buildings atop steep cliffs rise vertically beyond the gate. The shoreline curves into the distance again, and more buildings, including a lighthouse, and masted ships there are smoke-gray silhouettes. Near the lower right corner of the painting, four men pull on ropes tied around the prow of a small wooden boat while three others push it toward the land. Another man stands in the far end. A short distance beyond that boat is a tall wooden ship with three masts and rigging outlined against the night sky. Windows along the decks of that boat’s wide stern, angled toward us, glow with golden light. Beyond it and a bit to our left, another ship, smaller in scale, sails away from us. Several more ships move back to the horizon until we only see strokes of white and gray to indicate their unfurled sails.
Claude-Joseph Vernet, Moonlight, 1772, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Fund and Patrons' Permanent Fund, 2018.13.1

Moonlight

Claude-Joseph Vernet · 1772 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  2018.13.1

An ivory-white, lidded jug, a long, white clay pipe, an open paper packet of tobacco, and a burning ember in a clay pot are clustered together at the front corner of a wooden table in this vertical still life painting. Against a deep, sage-green background, the table extends off the left edge, and the front corner almost brushes the right edge of the composition. The objects are lit from our left, and the area beneath the tabletop is cast into deep shadow. To our left, the stoneware jug has a flaring foot, a round body, a handle next to its tall, ridged neck, and the narrow opening is covered with a metal cap. The jug has an olive-green band around the base and an oval of the same color on its body, enclosing a coat of arms. The crest has three, stacked Xes, and the date 1650 at the top. The cupped, metal lid is affixed to the top of the jug’s handle so it can be flipped up with a thumbpiece. The long, white pipe lies along the front edge of the table with its bowl tipped toward us. A knot of burning ash appears to have knocked out of the bowl. Behind the pipe is a folded, rumpled piece of paper holding nibs of dark brown, dried tobacco. More tobacco is scattered around the pipe, along with the ends of broken pipes, which resemble sticks of white chalk. A terracotta-brown dish holds a burning ember at the back of the table. The artist signed the work as if he had inscribed the front edge of the table with cursive letters, “Jan van de Velde fecit.”
Jan Jansz van de Velde III, Still Life with Stoneware Jug and Pipe, mid 1650s, oil on panel, The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund, 2019.13.1

Still Life with Stoneware Jug and Pipe

Jan Jansz van de Velde III · mid 1650s · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  2019.13.1

Shown from about the knees up, a pale-skinned young woman stands within a stone niche, with a parrot perched on her finger as she gazes out at us in this vertical painting. The woman’s hands are raised to chest height, and she balances the spruce-blue parrot on the index finger of her far hand while her other hand holds an indistinct, white object. Her body is angled to our left, and she looks at us from the corner of her green eyes under faint brows. Her round face has a small nose, flushed cheeks, and her coral-red mouth curls up in a slight smile, her lips parted. Her honey-blond hair is gathered at the back of her head with curly tendrils framing her face and falling to her shoulders. She wears a golden-brown gown trimmed with a narrow ruffle of white fabric along the low neckline that reveals her décolletage. The bird faces the woman and lifts something, presumably a bit of food, up with one dark claw. The underside of its tail is crimson red. A light-skinned boy stands in deep shadow just to the right of the woman. He looks up at her and holds a silver tray in both hands. They stand within a light brown, arched, stone opening beyond a ledge, which comes up to about the woman’s knees. A carpet patterned with stylized flowers in ruby red, burnt orange, teal blue, white, and black is bunched up and draped over the parapet, to our right. A tall, iron-gray cage sits to our left. The rug partly covers an inscription on the front face of the niche that reads, “M. DO,” with the O cut off. A copper-colored, fringe-lined drapery hangs from the upper right of the arch and is fastened to the inner edge of the opening to create a swag. The woman is brightly lit from the upper left, and the space behind her and the boy is ink black. The artist signed and dated the lower left corner as if he had carved into the front face of the arch. It reads, “CNetscher .Ao. 16.66,” with the C and N overlapping to make a monogram.
Caspar Netscher, A Woman Feeding a Parrot, with a Page, 1666, oil on panel, The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund, 2016.118.1

A Woman Feeding a Parrot, with a Page

Caspar Netscher · 1666 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  2016.118.1

Water laps at a curving shoreline in front of a steep sandy dune carpeted in grass, shrubs, and trees in this horizontal landscape painting. The dune takes up the lower right quadrant of the composition. A few broken tree trunks are overgrown with vines and plants across the top and down the sloping side of the dune facing us. A red brick wall cuts through the vegetation up the side of the dune and disappears into the shrubbery at the top. The twisting branches and canopies of three large trees reach into the upper right quadrant of the composition. The vegetation stops abruptly along the sheer edge of the dune where it faces the water. The land curves like a backward capital letter C so it almost reaches the left edge of the painting along the horizon, which comes a quarter of the way up the composition. A cow and three more animals, perhaps sheep or more cows, graze or lie on a grassy mound in the distance, and sailboats line the horizon in the deep distance. White ripples swirl in the steel-blue water. The artist signed and dated the lower center, “J Ruisdael . 1648.”
Jacob van Ruisdael, Dunes by the Sea, 1648, oil on panel, The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund, 2017.55.1

Dunes by the Sea

Jacob van Ruisdael · 1648 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  2017.55.1

A band of gray ice spans the bottom quarter of this vertical landscape painting, where dozens of people stand, skate, ride in sledges, or cluster near a slender wooden tower, all beneath a vivid blue sky screened with towering gray clouds. We look slightly down onto the scene from a distance. The cloud bank is horizontally streaked with pale yellow light along the bottom, but swells into gray puffs that break apart in several places toward the top to reveal patches of blue sky. The people below wear heavy coats, hats, and trousers, mostly in muted slate blue, gray, and brown. Many have their backs to us. Closest to us and near the lower left corner of the painting, a rectangular wooden sledge on rail-like runners holds five or six passengers, and is pulled by a brown horse toward the center distance. Nearby, a man on his hands and knees scrambles for his fallen hat. A man holds a pole like a hockey stick behind him, looking into the distance where others stand or run with more sticks. Near the bottom center of the painting, a man pushes a sledge laden with two brown bundles. The largest group of people and children gather on and around a rickety wooden pier from which the tower rises, to our right of center. A lantern-like structure sits atop a narrow platform on a tall pole, at the top of the tower. One ladder leads up to a landing about two-thirds of the way up the pole, and another leads to the top. A house with a pitched roof and smoking chimney sits on the far side of the pier, between two bare trees with curling, twisting branches. Birds fly above the tower. The ice is dark gray closest to us, and it becomes paler as it recedes into the distance. People dot the ice singly and in small groups as far as the eye can see. Far away, the silhouettes of a church with a spire, the masts of two ships, a wide tower, and a windmill line the horizon. The artist signed the work with a monogram and a date as if painted on the boat in the lower right corner: “VG 1646.”
Jan van Goyen, Ice Scene near a Wooden Observation Tower, 1646, oil on panel, The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund, 2014.35.1

Ice Scene near a Wooden Observation Tower

Jan van Goyen · 1646 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  2014.35.1

We look across a river at an arched bridge spanning the width of this horizontal landscape. Created with smudges of pastel almost entirely in tones of cream and bright white, pale lavender purple, soft teal, and the faintest sky blue, the bridge seems nearly lost in a bright fog. The straight deck of the bridge divides the composition in half, though it angles slightly away from us toward the right. The four low arches of the bridge are powder blue and lilac purple with cobalt blue shadows underneath. Blended areas of light, spring green, azure blue, and pale yellow create a hazy sky above. Vertical lines in ultramarine blue could be smokestacks or towers in the distance on the far bank. The blue paper is visible and has darkened at the edges of the sheet. The artist signed the work in smoke gray in the lower right corner: “Claude Monet.”
Claude Monet, Waterloo Bridge, 1901, pastel on blue wove paper, Florian Carr Fund, 2013.102.2

Waterloo Bridge

Claude Monet · 1901 · pastel on blue wove paper ·  Accession ID  2013.102.2

Dirck Hals, Merry Company on a Terrace, 1625, oil on panel, The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund, 2020.11.1

Merry Company on a Terrace

Dirck Hals · 1625 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  2020.11.1