Provenance

Bourgeois Frères

Bourgeois & Co.

active c. 1895

Explore selected works

Shown from the shoulders up, a man with peachy skin looks off to our left as he holds the feathered end of an arrow up in a hand resting along the bottom edge of this vertical portrait painting. Shown against a marine-blue background, he looks into the distance with hazel eyes under bushy eyebrows. He has a long, bumped nose, and his full, pale pink lips are closed. His round cheeks are tinged with pink, and there is a hint of a five-o-clock shadow around his mouth and jawline. Chestnut-brown, curly hair hangs to the base of his neck, and wispy curls fall across his forehead from under his tall, chocolate-brown cap. The cap has a small gold pin high over the ear we can see. The man wears a garnet-red jacket with a black collar over a white collarless shirt decorated with five black, narrow bands below the neckline. The fingers of his right hand, to our left, rest with the fingertips braced along on the bottom edge of the painting, as if along a ledge. He pinches the shaft of an arrow with his index finger and thumb, so we see the sienna-brown feathers. He wears a gold ring embedded with a small blue gem near the first knuckle of his ring finger.
Hans Memling, Portrait of a Man with an Arrow, c. 1470/1475, oil on panel, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1937.1.42

Portrait of a Man with an Arrow

Hans Memling · c. 1470/1475 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  1937.1.42

Shown from the chest up, a man with peach-colored skin sits in profile facing our left with downcast eyes in this vertical painting. He has a chestnut-brown beard and hair, brown eyes under thick brows, a slightly bumped nose, and pale, coral-pink lips. His nose and cheeks are tinged with pink. His robe is vibrant rose pink over the shoulders and scarlet red over his arms. The two colors are separated by a band of gold fringe. A bright, zigzagging line along the neckline could be a necklace or the edge of a white collar. He holds a lidded vessel near his left shoulder, closer to us. One hand tips the lid off the rounded bowl held in his other hand, which is cut off by the bottom edge of the canvas. The cup and lid are embellished with a row of bulging bosses around their edges. Inside the vessel is a glimpse of rounded, dark brown objects. The man is lit from the upper left, and the background is a mottled olive green and ginger brown.
Sir Peter Paul Rubens, Head of One of the Three Kings: Melchior, The Assyrian King, c. 1618, oil on panel transferred to canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1943.7.9

Head of One of the Three Kings: Melchior, The Assyrian King

Sir Peter Paul Rubens · c. 1618 · oil on panel transferred to canvas ·  Accession ID  1943.7.9

Shown from the thighs up, a pale-skinned woman looks down and off to our left as she holds the pointed end of a dagger toward her chest in this vertical painting. Her lips are slightly parted, and her arms are spread wide as holds the hilt of the dagger in her right hand, to our left. Her hooded, dark brown eyes are rimmed with red. Her head tilts to our left, her pale lips parted. There are gray shadows at the corners of her mouth and along her jawline. Her brown hair is pulled back under a cloth covering painted with white flecks to suggest shiny thread or possibly jewels. She wears a long, tawny-brown gown with diaphanous sleeves. The bodice is laced up over a cream-white undergarment with a deep V neck and voluminous sleeves with unfastened cuffs near her wrists. She wears a large, teardrop-shaped pearl in the ear we can see and two necklaces. One necklace is a strand of pearls, and the other is a gold and possibly jeweled pendant with another teardrop pearl hanging from a cord. A gold belt drapes around her hips over a narrow waist. She is warmly lit from the upper left and set against an earth-brown background. The artist signed and dated the center left, “Rembrandt 1664.”
Rembrandt van Rijn, Lucretia, 1664, oil on canvas, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1937.1.76

Lucretia

Rembrandt van Rijn · 1664 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1937.1.76

Shown from the chest up, a pale-skinned man holds one hand to his chest as he looks at us in this vertical portrait painting. His body is angled to our left almost in profile, and he turns his head to gaze out from the corners of his dark brown eyes. He has thick, dark brows, fleshy cheeks, and his pink lips are parted. He has a moustache and small patch of hair on under his lower lip. He has chin-length, straight brown hair and wears a high-crowned, brimmed black hat pushed slightly back on his forehead. A flat white collar lies across his shoulders over a voluminous black coat. His right palm, farther from us, rests against his chest, and the other hand is tucked below, mostly hidden by the coat. The wrist we see has a wide white cuff. The portrait is loosely painted, especially in the black-on-black pattern of the man’s clothing and the earth-brown background. The artist signed the painting with his initials in a conjoined monogram near the man’s far elbow, along the left edge of the canvas: “FH.”
Frans Hals, Portrait of a Man, 1648/1650, oil on canvas, Widener Collection, 1942.9.28

Portrait of a Man

Frans Hals · 1648/1650 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1942.9.28

Shown from the chest up, a pale-skinned older woman looks down and to our right in front of a shadowy background in this vertical painting. Brushstrokes are visible throughout, especially in the woman’s face and clothing. Her shoulders square toward us but she looks down and to the side with heavy-lidded, sunken eyes. Her face is deeply lined between her eyebrows, down the sides of her nose, and at the corners of her mouth. Her cheeks sag in jowls on either side of a fleshy chin, and her thin lips are set in a line. A cream-white cloth wraps across her forehead and covers her head. An earth-brown, voluminous hood rests across the crown of her head and droops to her shoulders, where it meets the cloak fastened at her throat over a steel-gray garment. The background is also dark brown and signed to our left near the woman’s shoulder, “Rembrandt 1957.”
Dutch 17th Century, Head of an Aged Woman, 1655/1660, oil on panel, Widener Collection, 1942.9.64

Head of an Aged Woman

Dutch 17th Century · 1655/1660 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  1942.9.64

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Saint Agnes

Italian 19th Century, French 19th Century, Italian 20th Century, French 20th Century · 1272/1298; cast c. 1897/1908 · gilded copper ·  Accession ID  1942.9.283

Bibliography

1904

  • Catalogue des objets d'art et de haute curiosité, composant la collection Bourgeois frères.... Auction cat. J.M. Heberle, Cologne, 19-27 October 1904.