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David M. Koetser Gallery

David M. Koetser
Koetser Gallery

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A basket of fruit, a plate of baked goods, glass jars, round wooden boxes, and terracotta-red and orange vessels are arranged among gray stone ledges set at different heights that together span the width of this horizontal still life painting. Light falls across the objects from the left, and the background is deeply shadowed, nearly black. Near the top left corner, a woven basket sits on the tallest ledge, almost reaching the top of the composition. It contains dark, plum-purple fruits, a golden loaf of bread in a white wrapper, and several translucent, glistening pieces of fruit in shades of brown and gold. Several long, garnet-red, finger-like objects are tucked among the fruit, and a braided white ring is propped in front. A ledge below this one starts in the lower left corner and spans just over half the width of the composition. Three terracotta vessels, a round, wooden box with its lid propped on its side, and a pewter-silver dish loaded with figs and baked sweets are arranged along the plinth, seeming close to us. Two long, fawn-brown, finger-like objects, perhaps more pastries, are tucked between the wooden box and a terracotta bowl. On the pewter dish, some of the pastries are round like doughnuts and sprinkled with white sugar, some curve in S-shapes, and at least one is long and straight. The third ledge extends from the center of the composition off the right edge, and it is situated behind the pewter dish and alongside the ledge with the basket. To the left on that ledge and at the center of the composition, a tall, rust-red vessel has a hollow center, creating a ring with a flaring foot. It has handles on the shoulders near the tall neck and spout. Shell shapes adorn the perimeter of the hollow center. A glass bowl filled with clear liquid and a round, glass jar filled with a red food, perhaps preserves, sit nearby. The jar sits in front of a translucent glass carafe, which is also tucked behind a stack of two round, lidded boxes, the one on top smaller than the one beneath. Another jar filled with cherry-red fruit sits atop the smaller box. The jars are sealed with twists of paper. The artist signed and dated the work as if he had inscribed the front face of the ledge near the lower right, “Juan vanderHamen i Leon fat 1627.”
Juan van der Hamen y León, Still Life with Sweets and Pottery, 1627, oil on canvas, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1961.9.75

Still Life with Sweets and Pottery

Juan van der Hamen y León · 1627 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1961.9.75

Cornelis Norbertus Gijsbrechts, A Hanging Wall Pouch, c. 1677, oil on panel, mirrored glass, Gift of Robert H. and Clarice Smith, 2022.181.81

A Hanging Wall Pouch

Cornelis Norbertus Gijsbrechts · c. 1677 · oil on panel, mirrored glass ·  Accession ID  2022.181.81

This painting features a landscape with a body of water stretching towards the horizon. The horizon includes dark windmills and sailboats silhouetted against the sky, with reflections on the still, yellow water. The sky is cloudy, and the setting sun at the center of the painting casts a pale-yellow glow across the center of the scene, while the edges are in shadow. Closest to us, there is grassy terrain with a wide dirt path and two rowboats near the water. The color palette is muted with browns, grays, and yellow tones.
Anthonie van Borssom, River Scene with Windmill and Boats, Evening, c. 1645, oil on panel, Gift of Robert H. and Clarice Smith , 2012.99.1

River Scene with Windmill and Boats, Evening

Anthonie van Borssom · c. 1645 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  2012.99.1

A mostly nude young woman with pale skin leans, half-sitting, back on one hand while she reaches for a silver vessel held by a second woman in this vertical painting. The woman who offers the vessel also has light skin, and both have auburn-brown hair bound up and interwoven with strands of pearls. The body of the woman at the center of the painting, Susanna, faces us and she turns her head to our left, to look at the vessel with shaded, dark eyes. She has a straight nose, and her ruby-red, full lips are closed. A glint on one earlobe suggests a jeweled earring behind curls that frame her face and brush her shoulders. She has small, firm breasts and wears a bronze-colored bracelet on each wrist. Crimson-red cloth hangs from the backs of her shoulders and drapes over her seat. Sheer white fabric covers her lap across her upper thighs. The toes of one foot rest on the ground while the other foot dips into the water of a pool. The other woman, holding the round vessel, faces away from us as she leans into the painting so only her head, shoulders, and arms are visible. Her dark pink sleeve wraps around the upper arm we can see, and she wears a gold-colored bracelet on that wrist. A swath of brick-red fabric hangs between the two women. A dark, shadowy bush dotted with deep pink roses fills the space behind Susanna and, in the distance to our left, two people stand under an arched trellis covered with vines. Wearing light-colored robes and hoods, the people in the distance are painted with silvery gray and cream white, and are translucent against the sky.
Domenico Tintoretto, Susanna, c. 1580s, oil on canvas, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1939.1.231

Susanna

Domenico Tintoretto · c. 1580s · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1939.1.231

A bundle of pale green, thick asparagus stalks bound by twine and a bunch of glistening ruby-red currants sit on the edge of a stone table or ledge against a deeply shadowed background in this vertical still life painting. The asparagus is situated with the jagged, broken edges facing our left and the pointed tips angled away from us to our right. The base of the stalks are nearly cream-white, and the tips are faint green and muted purple. To our right, one the two stems of the red currant berries and leaves dangles off the front edge of the table. Light spills onto the scene from our upper left giving the currants a glassy sheen. The stone ledge or table is cracked in a couple of places. The artist signed this work as if he had inscribed his name and the date on the front surface of the table: “A. Coorte. 1696.”
Adriaen Coorte, Still Life with Asparagus and Red Currants, 1696, oil on canvas, The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund, 2002.122.1

Still Life with Asparagus and Red Currants

Adriaen Coorte · 1696 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  2002.122.1

A young woman sitting and holding a nude baby boy is surrounded by winged angels and four men in this vertical painting. They all have pale skin, and the people, not angels, have delicate gold rings as halos. The woman, Mary, sits on a white stone pedestal on a stone step, which spans the width of the painting. Her head tilts to our right as she looks down. Her brown hair is covered with a translucent white veil. She wears a raspberry-pink dress under a midnight-blue cloak lined with pine green. She cradles the chubby baby with both hands. He has round cheeks, a snub nose, and bow-shaped lips. He looks at Mary and reaches toward her face with one hand. Two men stand on the step to either side of her pedestal, and two more kneel at the base of the step. The man at the top left is cleanshaven and has wings striped with grass green, mauve pink, pearl white, and sky blue. He wears a gold helmet, a muscled breastplate, a knee-length, lavender-blue tunic, and gold, shin-high, toe-less shoes. He holds a sword up high with one hand and a scale with the other. A tiny man kneels and prays to Mary in the higher pan of the scale. In front of him, a man with darker, tanned skin, kneels on one leg with his body facing us as he turns his head to look up at Mary and the baby. His brows are furrowed and his lips parted. He has short, curly brown hair and a trimmed beard. He wears a bottle-green robe and a canary-yellow cloak. He holds a piece of paper on a pink book braced against his raised knee. To the upper right, the man standing next to Mary’s pedestal has a long white beard, and he looks down at an open book he holds with both hands. He wears a conical, split hat, a grass-green robe edged with a pattern of haloed, winged baby heads against maroon red. He wears gold rings over white gloves and a white garment underneath the cloak. In front of him, a balding man with a curly white beard and hair also kneels on one leg in front of the step. This man also looks down with lips parted. He holds a book with a moss-green cover with one hand and a pen in the other as he writes on a piece of paper on the book. He wears a cranberry-red cloak over a lapis-blue robe, and both kneeling men wear sandals on the feet we can see. Four winged angels, about half the size of the other people, hover in a line behind Mary, two to each side. They all have long, blond, curly hair. Their wings and robes are painted in shades of red, yellow, blue, and green. The angel to our left holds a spray of white flowers and one to our right holds a branch of white lilies. They all look at Mary or the baby. A sliver of blue, mountainous landscape is visible to our left of the pedestal. The horizon comes about halfway up the composition, so Mary, the angels, and the men standing to each side of the pedestal are mostly outlined against a pale blue sky.
Luca Signorelli, Madonna and Child with Saints and Angels, mid or late 1510s, oil on panel transferred to hardboard, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1961.9.87

Madonna and Child with Saints and Angels

Luca Signorelli · mid or late 1510s · oil on panel transferred to hardboard ·  Accession ID  1961.9.87

We look slightly down at an ornate fountain in a dirt and stone courtyard surrounded by about two dozen people, many of whom look at or gesture toward the fountain in this vertical painting. Most of the people have pale, peachy skin but one man, near the lower center, has dark brown skin and short black hair. The fountain has a broad, shell-shaped base filled with glimmering, aquamarine-blue water. In the basin, and as if carved from gray stone, two muscular, nude men blow horns as they ride stylized dolphins, which spout water into the pool. Two more people wearing robes sit atop a tall, pedestal-shaped form that rises from the back of the shell base. The person to our left holds aloft a bowl and the other holds a vessel on her lap as she turns to look up and behind her at the pinnacle of the fountain. There, a person, also carved from stone, sits on a throne and points down with one hand while the other, closer to us, rests on a short column with three flame-like protrusions up each side. He leans back against a short, curving ship with an oar coming through a porthole to our right. A nude, chubby, baby-like cherub straddles the rudder like a horse to our right. The sun falls down the front of the fountain, especially highlighting the middle tier and bottom shell-shaped basin, and it illuminates the people gathered around and near its base. One man to our left kneels on the edge of the basin and dips one hand in, as several others stand around it and look up at or point toward it. Most of the people wear robes, cloaks, and tunics in mustard yellow, tomato red, peach, white, and royal or light blue. A few vignettes draw the eye, including two men wearing chains on their ankles, are sprawled in shadow in the lower left corner of the composition. In that same cluster, two men stand and gesture toward the fountain while another sits at their feet. Nearby, the man with brown skin sits in front of a light-skinned man wearing a turban, a striped tunic, and a short sword hanging from his belt. The turbaned man stands with his back to us and rests his right hand on the handle of a pointed axe, using it like a cane. To our right, a person wearing an armor breastplate under a ruby-red cloak stands next to a balding man who also points up at the fountain. A young man wearing a lemon-yellow suit sits on a fallen block in the lower right corner of the composition, holding a board on his lap and presumably sketching the fountain, as a man wearing sapphire blue looks on. More people walk toward the fountain down in front of a gate to our right of the fountain. Beyond, plants and vegetation grow among ruins with columns, a stone obelisk, and a tall narrow pyramid. Pale pink clouds float in the pastel blue sky above. The artists signed their names as if written on the face of a stone block near the lower left: “B.” and “M.” next to “RICCI Faciebant.”
Sebastiano Ricci, Marco Ricci, Memorial to Admiral Sir Clowdisley Shovell, 1725, oil on canvas, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1961.9.58

Memorial to Admiral Sir Clowdisley Shovell

Sebastiano Ricci, Marco Ricci · 1725 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1961.9.58

Dozens of men, women, and a few children gather in groups amid a grassy landscape with a mountain in the distance in this horizontal painting. All of the people have pale or ruddy skin and wear flowing cloaks over long tunics or gowns. Warm light from the upper left illuminates the two groups closest to us, which cluster along the left and right edges of the canvas. Each group is set against a dark background suggesting cave walls or rocky outcroppings. On our left, an elderly man sits with his back to us as he looks across this shoulder to our right. He wears an amber-brown robe with darker brown stripes, and a denim-blue boot on the foot we can see. His head is wrapped in a white turban, and his tan face is framed by a salt-and-pepper beard. Steel-blue fabric drapes across his hips. A man and woman stand just beyond him, facing us. The young, bearded, dark-haired man wears a gleaming sea-blue cloak over a burgundy-red garment. The woman is wrapped in a rust-red cloak and holds an infant close to her cheek. Along the right edge of the painting, two blond women and a young child gather around a table covered with a white cloth. The woman seated on the far side of the table wears a velvety, chocolate-brown gown with a white kerchief around her shoulders, and rose-pink fabric drapes across her lap. She faces us with her upper body turned to our right as she gazes up and to our right with one hand raised. A youth cradling a silver bowl filled with fruit stands behind her with his head also turned to look in the same direction. Along the rightmost edge of the canvas, a woman sits facing us, wearing a coral-red gown with one breast exposed along a low neckline. Blush-pink fabric patterned with teal-blue diamonds drapes over one shoulder and across her lap. She tilts her head to our right and gazes down at the child standing by her side. The child wears a silver-gray tunic and has closely cropped brown hair. The woman offers the child an orange fruit. An elderly, balding man with a long silver-gray beard and hair stands behind the woman, at the top of the group. His arms cross his chest while he bows slightly. Between the rocky outcroppings behind both groups, a grassy meadow stretches to a hazy blue mountain in the distance. A narrow stream runs across the painting just beyond the outcroppings. Several people at the far side of the stream flank a tall man with a long beard who stands facing us. He wears a full-length, brick-red robe with a black mantle draped over his head, across his arms, and down his back. A headdress over the mantle has peaks like a narrow crescent moon. To his right, our left, a man also wearing a red tunic and spruce-blue leggings bends down to place a gold circle or dish on a pile of other gold objects on the ground. Two women and two men stand clustered to his left, our right. The women wear blue-green robes, and the men have lead-gray cloaks. About twenty-five men and women along with two small children sitting on the ground create a band across the landscape beyond the group at the stream. They wear gold, aquamarine-blue, canary-yellow, and scarlet-red garments. To the left beyond this group, a crowd circles around a tall narrow structure supporting a gold-colored calf. The people look up at the animal while four women kneel in front, playing instruments. To our right, in the distance, four men and women sit around a cloth-covered table under a tent-like canopy. There are dishes on the table and a fifth person stands nearby, presumably serving the group. On a hill that rises steeply behind the tent, another group of four people recline in a similar canopied structure. At the center of the painting, between the tents and the group around the calf, a single bearded man with white hair walks toward our right in profile, the arm we can see extended. The landscape beyond the people has a lake lined with trees at the foot of the hazy mountain, which almost reaches the top of the composition. Finally, in the upper right corner, atop the rocky outcropping close to us, a person, seen from the waist down, kneels, wearing a rose-pink garment. Golden yellow flames flicker out around and behind the person.
Italian 16th Century, The Worship of the Golden Calf, c. 1594, oil on canvas, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1939.1.180

The Worship of the Golden Calf

Italian 16th Century · c. 1594 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1939.1.180

The painting depicts a wide country road seen from above. The horizon is halfway up the painting, showing the flat, green land meeting the blue sky. Far in the distance there are faint blue buildings, including a tall tower. The road curves toward us from this distant city, with small people in the distance walking along it. Closer to us, at the bottom of the painting, several groups of people travel down the path in either direction. People converse, herd cattle and brown pigs, or ride in horse-drawn carts as they move down the dirt path. Brushstrokes capture detailed foliage, people, and animals. The color palette includes rich greens, earthy browns, and bright clothing in shades of red, blue, yellow, and white.
Jan Brueghel the Elder, Wooded Landscape with Travelers, 1610, oil on panel, The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund, 2020.26.1

Wooded Landscape with Travelers

Jan Brueghel the Elder · 1610 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  2020.26.1

Two pale-skinned women wearing jewel-toned blue, pink, and yellow togas sit on the ground at the foot of a stone building, with three, winged, child-like putti flying nearby in this horizontal painting. The women take up most of the left half of the painting while the building behind them spans nearly three-quarters of the composition. A sliver of landscape is visible beyond the building to our right. Both women have dark, ash-brown hair wrapped back around diadems, long, straight noses, dark eyes, and smooth skin. Their cheeks are flushed, and their dark pink lips are parted. To our left, the first woman sits with her body facing our right in profile, and she turns to look at us from the corners of her eyes. Six silver stars line the sky-blue diadem in her hair. Her voluminous white shift falls off the shoulder closer to us, and she wears a swath of sapphire-blue drapery over her other arm and lap. One foot, wearing a yellow sandal, emerges from under the hem of her robe. She leans the elbow closer to us on a silver sphere, which comes a bit higher than her waist. Her other hand rests on the shoulder of the woman next to her. The second woman sits with her legs angled to our right, and she turns her face back to look at the first woman. She wears a butter-yellow garment under a rose-pink toga, and one foot, wearing a blue sandal, rests on the dirt ground. A baby-blue ribbon is tied through her hair, around a gold coronet. Her hands rest on a book in her lap. The partial word “odiss” is written along the edges of the pages facing us. Three pudgy angels with small blue wings flutter near the second woman, to our right. The putti have short, brown or blond, curly hair. Sashes in golden yellow, pink, or blue are tied around one shoulder and their opposite hips. They hold up three crowns of leaves. The building immediately behind the women and putti is parchment white streaked with brown. A tall foundation supports two columns, the base of which are near the top edge of the painting. A few plants grow out of the crevices, and a bush with white and light blue flowers grows behind the woman in blue, to our left. A landscape extends into the distance to our right, with rolling green hills, trees, and far-off, ice-blue mountains along the horizon. The sky above has apricot-peach and gray clouds against a pale blue sky.
Simon Vouet, The Muses Urania and Calliope, c. 1634, oil on wood, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1961.9.61

The Muses Urania and Calliope

Simon Vouet · c. 1634 · oil on wood ·  Accession ID  1961.9.61

Bibliography

1988

  • The Paintings of the David M. and Betty Koetser Foundation, Zurich, 1988

1992

  • Baumann, Felix A. "Händler, Sammler und Mäzen. Zum Tode von David Maurits Koetser." Neue Zürcher Zeitung 140 (19 June 1992):55