Provenance

Stiebel, Ltd.

Aurora Trust c/o Stiebel, Ltd.
Rosenberg & Stiebel Inc.

Explore selected works

See all 30 works of art
Shown from the chest up, a cleanshaven man with peachy skin sits angled to our right in this vertical portrait painting. He has chin-length, curly, auburn-red hair. He gazes off to our right with hazel eyes under thick brows. He has a slightly humped nose, and his wide mouth is closed. Loose jowls line his jawline. A large, soft, scarlet-red cap covers the top of his head and hangs down over the far ear, to our right. The brim is upturned and the underside lined with brown ovals. He wears a salmon-pink tunic over an apricot-colored undergarment, which is striped with thin gray strokes. The loose neckline of the tunic is trimmed with black. A background is streaked with emerald green and tan.
Hans Holbein the Younger, Portrait of a Young Man, c. 1520/1530, oil on panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1961.9.21

Portrait of a Young Man

Hans Holbein the Younger · c. 1520/1530 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  1961.9.21

A nude boy or young man standing with one arm leaning on a staff is cast in bronze in this free-standing sculpture. In this photograph, the boy’s body is squared to us, but the head turns to look down to our left. The boy has a straight nose, smooth cheeks, thin lips, and a pointed chin. A cap of tight curls is covered by a bowl-like helmet with wings on either side. The man stands with his weight mostly on his left leg, to our right, which is straight. His other ankle crosses in front of the standing leg, and the toes and ball of that second foot rest lightly on the round base. The man settles into his left hip so his torso sways to our right. His right elbow, to our left, rests on the ribcage-high staff, and his opposite shoulder drops as he rests that hand on his hip. He holds short pipes in both hands. The gentle contours of the boy’s muscles can be made out under his smooth skin. The staff has knobs as if branches had been shorn off. A tiny snake curves in a tight slithering S at the base of the staff, and a couple pebbles are near the boy’s feet. The sculpture rests a square, light brown stone plinth against a pale gray background.
Italian 16th Century, Mercury, 16th century, bronze, Andrew W. Mellon Fund, 1959.7.1

Mercury

Italian 16th Century · 16th century · bronze ·  Accession ID  1959.7.1

A cleanshaven man in a saffron-yellow cloak runs and points to a nude woman whose fingers are turning into leafy tree branches in this horizontal painting. The woman is supported by an elderly man with a long beard and a winged young child all gathered around an oversized urn. The people all have pale rosy or tanned skin. To our right, the young man runs toward the woman to our left. His cloak wraps around his hips and flies out behind him. He wears a laurel wreath nestled in his blond hair, which is surrounded by a gold glow. A quiver of arrows hangs from one hip, and he wears sandals but is otherwise nude. He points to the woman with his right hand, on our left, with that foot raised. The blond, nude woman sits on the urn and lies back on a white cloth supported by a nude boy with short white wings. Her back is to us, and she looks to our right in profile. The fingers of her raised hands morph into muted green leaves. One of her legs bends over the arm of an old man who sits next to the urn and hooks one arm over its round body. The man’s head is topped with dark green material, like reeds, and he has a long white beard. His skin is ruddy, and his body is muscular. The urn’s opening faces us, and water pours onto the scarlet-red cloth that drapes across the old man’s hips and pools on the dirt ground around him. A spade with a long, wooden handle and a long, narrow blade lies on the ground before him. Evergreen trees grow up the left side of the scene, which appears to take place at the top of a mountain, for we look down into a dense forest beyond. A hazy blue mountain in the deep distance points up to the topaz-blue sky spanned with thin layers of gray-white clouds. The artist signed the lower left, “Gio. B. Tiepolo.”
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Apollo Pursuing Daphne, c. 1755/1760, oil on canvas, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1952.5.78

Apollo Pursuing Daphne

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo · c. 1755/1760 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1952.5.78

Marco Zoppo, Anonymous Artist, Madonna and Child, c. 1467/1468, tempera on poplar panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1961.9.51

Madonna and Child

Marco Zoppo, Anonymous Artist · c. 1467/1468 · tempera on poplar panel ·  Accession ID  1961.9.51

A woman holds the hands of two nude children in front of a crimson-red cloth in this vertical painting. All three have pale skin and brown hair. The woman wears a forest-green dress with voluminous sleeves and a gauzy white headdress that wraps around her hair and is fastened with a band across her forehead. She stands crouching with one foot extended slightly forward in a sandal, surrounded by broken chunks of masonry and bits of burning logs. Her body faces us but she turns her head to the right. Her mouth is wide open, and her eyes cut back to our left. The woman clutches the children’s hands in both of her own. The child to our left turns away from us and reaches one hand up to touch the back of the woman’s hand. The child on the right twists away from the woman, eyes squinted up and to the right and mouth open. Behind them, fold lines create a grid across the red cloth. Slivers of grass and blue sky line each side of the composition.
Ercole de' Roberti, The Wife of Hasdrubal and Her Children, c. 1490/1493, tempera on poplar panel, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, 1965.7.1

The Wife of Hasdrubal and Her Children

Ercole de' Roberti · c. 1490/1493 · tempera on poplar panel ·  Accession ID  1965.7.1

A long haired, bearded man holds a whip and stands in the middle of a crowd of about two dozen people who stand or twist, all in a building with columns and arches in this horizontal painting. Brushstrokes are visible in some areas, especially in the clothing and sky seen through one arch. All the men have light skin with a greenish cast while the women and children have smooth, pale skin. They wear dresses and robes in shades of rose pink, lapis blue, emerald green, or brown. The man at the center, Jesus, stands facing us with his right knee bent and his weight shifted onto his other leg. He holds a short, four-tailed whip in his right hand high and stretched across his body. He tilts his head to our left and looks down in that direction at the person next to him. Jesus has brown hair and wears a dark pink robe under a bright blue cloth that drapes over one shoulder and across the other hip. To our left, two men with bare torsos and raised arms lean away from Jesus. The man closest to him faces away from us as he bends over at the waist and looks over his shoulder at Jesus. That man wears a burnt orange cloth wrapped around his hips over a dark brown skirt, perhaps of a toga. Behind this pair are about a dozen other people and below them, two bare-breasted women recline on steps, their bodies angled to our right. One woman throws her head back against her raised arm, her mouth open and brow gathered. The other woman looks up at Jesus, holding one hand to her bare breast, her lips closed. She rests her right hand, to our left, on a cage holding five white birds on the ground next to her. Next to Jesus, on our right, a wrinkled, balding, gray-haired and bearded man sits on the steps so his knees come toward us. His torso twists to our left so he can rest his chin in his hand as he looks up at Jesus. That elbow and his other hand rest on the handle of a basket filled with gold coins. There are several animals around this man, including two black and white rabbits at his feet, nosing silver objects spilling from a pouch. Nearby, a gray bird sits on the step, and a white lamb with its feet tied to a stick lies belly up next to a wooden box. Behind the man is a crowd of at least eight people, looking at Jesus or each other. A bare-breasted woman guides a naked, toddler-aged child away from this group. A stick balanced across the woman’s far shoulder has a chicken hanging from the front end and a basket hanging behind. Another child lies back on the steps near the right edge of the painting. Next to that child, an open book and a loaf of bread lie beneath a table covered with an orange and brown patterned cloth. The scene takes place in a structure with columns and arched openings. Two people wearing blue robes hustle under one arched opening to our right, which leads back to a shadowed space lit with a chandelier. Blue sky and gray and white clouds are visible through the arch over Jesus, where there are also more sand-brown buildings in the distance. There are statues high up on ledges on either side of that opening. The artist signed the work in white paint in the lower left to the right of the bird cage in Greek letters.
El Greco, Christ Cleansing the Temple, probably before 1570, oil on panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1957.14.4

Christ Cleansing the Temple

El Greco · probably before 1570 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  1957.14.4

We look slightly down across a sun-drenched plaza with people scattered among ruins, buildings, and around a free-standing column in this vertical landscape painting. The people we can see have light skin. Towering trees with celery, sage, and forest-green leaves frame a small plaza paved with flax-colored stones. A tree to our right almost reaches the top of the painting, and a shorter tree in front of it has toppled onto the plaza. To our left, in the lower corner, a man sits behind a shadowy balustrade, looking down. In the lower center of the painting, a man walks toward us, holding a basket over one arm and dead poultry in the other hand, and a dog sits nearby. Slightly farther back is a tall stone column with a door in its base and a statue on top. A woman wearing a red shirt and blue skirt sits on a step in front of the door. Along the left side, the plaza gives way to a tree-lined, dirt road that meanders toward a stone arch in the middle distance, and to a cluster of low buildings beyond. Two towers catch the light, one with a slate-blue dome and the other with a peach-colored steeple. Farther back from the buildings is a dark line of trees at the base of a steep green hill dotted with groves of trees, which rises high over the plaza below. Another building complex, glowing in warm tones of straw yellow, sits at its top. Small dots of red, white, and blue suggest a handful of people making their way up the hill’s wide path. A river with moss-green water pouring over a dam extends from the lower right corner into the distance along the right edge of the painting. Near the column, a man fishes at the water’s edge. The water winds back to a row of silvery-gray buildings in the far distance. Several people in red, yellow, or white, tiny in scale, dot the riverbanks and cross the bridge. A screen of thin, pale pink clouds float across the light blue sky.
Canaletto, English Landscape Capriccio with a Column, c. 1754, oil on canvas, Paul Mellon Collection, 1964.2.1

English Landscape Capriccio with a Column

Canaletto · c. 1754 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1964.2.1

Sun pours across a landscape with trees and plants growing around and on an arched stone ruin, a bridge and river, and, in the distance, buildings along a flat-topped hill carpeted with grass in this vertical painting. Tiny in scale in the landscape, about two dozen men, women, and children wear dresses and clothing in shades of tan, brown, turquoise, cream white, black, red, and mustard yellow. Close to us, the arched ruins, possibly of an aqueduct, are nearly hidden by tall trees, bushes, and growth hanging from its deck. The trees growing up in front of the ruins nearly span the height of the painting and take up most of the left half of the composition. A river winds from the lower right corner into the distance to our right, passing under a bridge in the middle distance on the right edge of the painting. The shallowly arched bridge crosses the river in front of a long block of a building with rows of windows and arched arcades. The flat-topped hill rises in the center distance. There, a freestanding arch could be another ruin. Buildings with brown walls and terracotta-red roofs, along with the pointed spire of a church, are contained within a town wall a little farther down the hill from the arch. More churches with spires are nestled into the valley to our left of the hill, extending into the distance. The people are scattered through the landscape, and they all have pale skin. Closest to us, a man and woman stand near a black and white dog that barks at a pair of swans in the river, at the bottom center of the composition. A woman nearby bends over a basket on the ground, and a man with a long staff, tucked into the vegetation near the aqueduct, looks on. More people sit, stand, or play by the riverbank closer to the bridge or look at the water from the bridge itself. On the river is an elaborately decorated, long, narrow boat like a gondola. One person in the boat props open a yellow and white parasol; another, who rows the boat, wears a blue and yellow outfit with a cap like an overturned flower blossom. The horizon comes about a third of the way up the composition and the sky above is brilliant topaz blue.
Canaletto, English Landscape Capriccio with a Palace, c. 1754, oil on canvas, Paul Mellon Collection, 1964.2.2

English Landscape Capriccio with a Palace

Canaletto · c. 1754 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1964.2.2

Shown from the lap up, a pale-skinned woman looks off to the left in front of a vivid green background in this vertical portrait painting. The woman’s whole body angles to the left as she gazes in that direction with gray eyes under faint brows. Her nose is indented on the long side, and her thin pink lips are closed in a line. Her strawberry-blond hair is pulled back over her left ear, to our right, and is otherwise hidden under a wide, floppy black cap. A glint of gold at the top of the hat could be her hair or a brooch or decoration. Her tightly fitting black bodice has a high collar. Her arms rest by her sides, and the sleeves are wine red. A belt around her narrow waist is laced with black on an orange band at the front, and a section below has a crosshatched pattern painted with delicate black lines on golden yellow. The woman is lit from our left and casts a darker green shadow on the lime-green background. The top and left edges of the panel are also lined with darker green.
Lucas Cranach the Elder, Portrait of a Woman, 1522, oil on panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1959.9.2

Portrait of a Woman

Lucas Cranach the Elder · 1522 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  1959.9.2

Red satin drapes are drawn back to either side of this vertical painting to reveal a nude woman with pale, white skin sitting upright in a narrow bathtub. The woman occupies the right half of the painting. To our left, another woman nursing a swaddled baby and a child, all also with pale skin, gather near the tub. The bathing woman’s body is angled slightly to our left but she looks into the distance to our right. She has a straight nose, small pink lips, dark eyes, and smooth skin. Her brown hair is pulled up under a jeweled cap, and she wears pearl earrings, a gold bracelet on each wrist, and a gold ring with a pink stone on her left pinky finger. She holds a carnation with her right hand, on our left. The inside of the tub is draped with white fabric, which folds over the sides. A bowl of fruit and flowers are scattered on what must be a board spanning the tub, which is also covered with a white cloth. From the far side of the tub, the child reaches for the fruit. The woman nursing the baby has one breast exposed but is otherwise fully dressed in a garment with red sleeves and a white cap. The woman has a prominent nose, and she smiles as she looks at us from the corners of her eyes. The room behind these women has fireplace with an ornate mantel and windows open to a landscape to our left. A picture showing a unicorn resting in front of a tree and a dark mirror hangs on the wall between the fireplace and windows. At a table placed in front of the fireplace, a third light-skinned woman leans over and lifts a jug.
François Clouet, A Lady in Her Bath, c. 1571, oil on oak, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1961.9.13

A Lady in Her Bath

François Clouet · c. 1571 · oil on oak ·  Accession ID  1961.9.13

Bibliography

1990

  • Carlsen, Peter. "Golden Anniversary." The Connoisseur (1990).