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Sir Thomas Lawrence, Mrs. Robert Blencowe, c. 1792, oil on canvas, Widener Collection, 1942.9.37

Mrs. Robert Blencowe

Sir Thomas Lawrence · c. 1792 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1942.9.37

A woman and child stand in an enclosed courtyard in this vertical painting. A two-story house rises along the left edge of the painting, and three more people gather at a table set within an enclosure at the far side of the courtyard to our right. All the people have pale skin. At the center of the composition, the woman holds a wide basket propped against a hip with one hand and a white pitcher down by her side with the other. Her hair is covered by a flat black cap that comes to a point high on the forehead. Her brown jacket is worn over a white shirt, which is visible at the neckline. A white apron is gathered and tied up over her long red skirt. She looks down, smiling, at the child at her side, to our right. The child wears a white cap over blond hair, a long brown garment with a wide, white collar, and a white apron. Holding a bird cage with both hands, the child looks off to our left. The courtyard is paved with tan bricks, but a slender tree, the same height as the woman, grows among the pavers in the bottom right of the composition. The corner of the house has a pink rose growing up a trellis, also the same height as the woman, on the side facing the pair. A wooden bucket and clay pot sit at the front corner of the house next to a wider basin on our side. A broom inside the basin leans against the brick wall below a black metal pump with a spout and long handle. Shadows cast by rooflines behind us fall on the second story of the house, which is clad in horizontal wood boards. A flight of stairs past the back corner of the house leads through an open door, which is set into a wall that encloses the far side of the courtyard. A structure with a narrow triangular pediment supported by pairs of pink columns covers a small dining area. Two men and a woman sit with a white pitcher and some food on the table, which is indistinct in the shadows. Across the table from us, the woman wears a black dress with a wide white collar, and she holds a flaring glass with red wine. The two men sitting with their backs angled to us wear tall, wide-brimmed black hats and black suits. The one closer to us holds a long-stemmed white clay pipe to his lips. Deep green canopies of trees peek over the far side of the wall, and the sky above has thin white clouds against a blue sky.
Pieter de Hooch, Woman and Child in a Courtyard, 1658/1660, oil on canvas, Widener Collection, 1942.9.34

Woman and Child in a Courtyard

Pieter de Hooch · 1658/1660 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1942.9.34

Painted in golden tones of butter and harvest yellow, tawny brown, and olive green, this horizontal landscape painting has a low wall stretching diagonally from the lower right corner off to our left, dividing a river to our right from a grassy lawn to our left. The waist-high wall is lined with tall trees with high canopies, which fill most of the composition. Close to us, at the lower center of the painting, a hoop rests against the end of a second, low wall. A short ladder with four rungs leans against a tree trunk in the lower left corner. Only a sliver of the ivy-covered trunk rises along the left edge of the painting. A short distance away, two chairs near a small, square-topped wooden table sit on the grass under the long shadows of the tall trees. Two or three people, seeming to wear long skirts, stand or sit on the long wall that spans the width of the painting, behind a nearby tree trunk. A navy-blue garment lies over the wall to our right, and a black dog walks on the wall near the center of the painting, beyond the people. Barely visible, a small white dog stands with its front paws on the wall next to the black dog. A pathway alongside the trees and wall leads to a covered structure with a triangular pediment roof held up by fluted columns in the distance. Several long, low barges filled with people float in the river to our right. Red and white flags flutter in the breeze and the full, rectangular sails of a couple of the boats are raised. The placid surface of the river is thickly painted, especially where the small disk of the pale yellow sun reflects on the golden surface of the water below. The horizon comes about a third of the way up the composition and is lined in the deep distance with a band of loosely painted, muted, mauve-pink buildings and trees.
Joseph Mallord William Turner, Mortlake Terrace, 1827, oil on canvas, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1937.1.109

Mortlake Terrace

Joseph Mallord William Turner · 1827 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1937.1.109

A young girl wearing a rust-red dress with a tight bodice and full, voluminous skirt sits in a hazy, garden-like setting in this vertical portrait painting. Her skin is pale with a greenish cast, but her cheeks are slightly flushed. Her body faces us but her head turns as she looks off to our left with dark eyes. She has faint brows, high cheekbones, a pointed chin, and her thin lips are parted. Her blond hair falls down the sides of her face, and she wears a brick-red bow across the top of her head. A second bow, the same color, is tied under her chin. Her dress is off the shoulders and cut low across her chest. The bodice, neckline, and half-length sleeves are lined with lace, and a sprig with forest-green leaves is tucked into the neckline. She holds a bouquet of red, pink, blue, and white flowers in her lap with both hands. The pointed tip of one gold shoe peeks out from under the hem of her skirt. The background around her is painted with blended tones of teal, aquamarine, and steel blue. A tree grows up along the right edge, and the dark canopy curves over her head, in the upper right corner. One rose lies in deep shadow near her feet.
Sir Joshua Reynolds, Lady Elizabeth Hamilton, 1758, oil on canvas, Widener Collection, 1942.9.75

Lady Elizabeth Hamilton

Sir Joshua Reynolds · 1758 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1942.9.75

Shown from the chest up, a pale-skinned man with a narrow face looks at us from in front of a distant landscape in this vertical portrait painting. His body and face are angled to our left, so he looks at us from the corners of his brown eyes. He has dark, low brows, a straight nose, high cheekbones, and his rose-pink lips turn slightly down at the corners. Chestnut-brown waves fall over his ears and down the back of his neck from under a tall, brimless, rounded, black cap. His black robe has a high neck lined with a white undergarment. Far behind him, a grassy hill leads up to steep, rocky outcroppings, with those to our right dotted with trees. The land rolls into the distance to meet mountains, hazy blue along the horizon, which comes halfway up this composition. The clear sky above deepens from pale blue along the mountains to slate blue across the top.
Pietro Perugino, Portrait of Lorenzo di Credi, 1488, oil on panel transferred to canvas, Widener Collection, 1942.9.38

Portrait of Lorenzo di Credi

Pietro Perugino · 1488 · oil on panel transferred to canvas ·  Accession ID  1942.9.38

Sir Joshua Reynolds, Lady Cornewall, c. 1785-1786, oil on canvas, Widener Collection, 1942.9.74

Lady Cornewall

Sir Joshua Reynolds · c. 1785-1786 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1942.9.74

About two dozen people ride horses or stand near a woman, Mary, holding a nude baby, Jesus in a landscape in this vertical painting. The people wear robes or tunics in shades of emerald green, ruby red, butter yellow, celestial blue, and ivory white. Jesus sits on Mary’s lap in the lower center of the composition, just in front of a tall structure with open walls and a pitched roof. A rectangular trough on legs is just behind Mary. Both Mary and Jesus have pale skin, blond hair, and long faces with flat features. A translucent veil covers Mary’s hair, which falls past her shoulders. Her red dress has a white collar and cuffs, and a midnight-blue cloak falls from her shoulders, across her lap, and puddles in thick folds on the ground. The cloak is edged in gold and jewels. One hand props up Jesus’s shoulder and the other wraps around his other forearm. Jesus faces and looks at a kneeling, pale-skinned man to our right who holds out a bronze-colored vessel with both hands. The kneeling man has a white beard and hair, and wears a gold-trimmed, hooded red cloak over a navy-blue robe. To our right, in the lower corner, three men stand and look toward Mary and Jesus. One wears a gold crown nestled into a tall green hat, a fur-lined red cloak, and a jeweled pendant. He holds the hinged lid of a gold cup open. The man next to him holds a green hat against his chest, and the third, smaller in scale, stands with his back to us. That man also holds a crowned hat, presumably of the kneeling man. Three more men up along the right edge of the composition ride horses and a fourth holds a chest across one shoulder. All of the people on this side have pale skin. Four more people ride horses, a camel, or stand at the back of the structure. Two of these men have dark brown skin, and one of those has exageratedly large red lips. The other two men are pale-skinned, and all four wear unusually shaped conical hats or turbans. Two pale-skinned men wearing brown or black and white monks’ robes face each other next to the half wall to our left. Three people stand in the lower left corner, closer to us. A person at the front of the group has light brown skin and wears a gold and jeweled crown around a column of black hair. The shimmering green tunic is edged with gold and jewels, and that person holds a gold and crystal orb in one hand. A person with dark brown skin wears a white turban, red robe, and gold rings and earrings stands behind, and the third person has light brown skin and stands with his back to us, looking at Mary and Jesus. These three people also have oversized red lips and bulbous noses. Behind this trio, up along the left edge of the composition, five pale- and brown-skinned people ride or move between five horses and one camel. Two more pale-skinned people stand inside the structure to our right, at that back corner. One has a white beard and hair partially covered by a fur-lined, hooded red robe. The other wears a waist-length, green velvet cape over red stockings and high boots. A square gold and jeweled panel hangs on a chain around his neck and a sword hangs at his side. Several monkeys and three thin dogs are scattered around the scene. Two dogs wear wide, jeweled collars and one wears a red and gold jacket. The monkeys have chains around their necks or waists. One monkey, close to us, has a gold up at the other end of the chain. People walk along a path across the landscape, beyond the structure. Olive-green and ochre-yellow hills roll back to a body of water with a town on the far shore in the background. The horizon comes three-quarters of the way up the composition, and a few wispy white clouds skirt across the ultramarine-blue sky above.
North Netherlandish 15th Century, The Adoration of the Magi, fourth quarter 15th century, oil on canvas transferred from panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1952.5.41

The Adoration of the Magi

North Netherlandish 15th Century · fourth quarter 15th century · oil on canvas transferred from panel ·  Accession ID  1952.5.41

About a dozen people, tiny in scale, flail their arms or huddle in small groups in a vast, mountainous landscape in this gold-toned, horizontal painting. A grassy expanse stretches across the bottom edge the canvas into the middle distance, where it meets steep hills separated by deep valleys. White water, falls or rivers, separate some of the mounds. Two tall branches of a sparse, V-shaped tree cut into the sky to our right. The horizon comes about halfway up the composition, and the landscape and people are painted loosely so details are difficult to make out. The people cluster in two groups in the landscape, which is painted with tones of eucalyptus and laurel green. To our left, a person runs from what appears to be a fire-lined opening in the ground. A basket, a set of pan pipes, perhaps a cloak, and maybe some tools are gathered near the tree to our right. A walled building complex high on a flat hilltop in the distance is warmed to peanut brown by the setting sun. A blanket of dark buttercup-yellow and rust-orange clouds mostly hides an icy blue sky.
Joseph Mallord William Turner, The Rape of Proserpine, 1839, oil on canvas, Gift of Mrs. Watson B. Dickerman, 1951.18.1

The Rape of Proserpine

Joseph Mallord William Turner · 1839 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1951.18.1

Shown from about the knees up, a man with peachy skin, wearing a voluminous black cloak and a tall, brimmed hat, looks directly at us in this vertical portrait painting. His body is angled to our left and he turns his face to look at us with brown eyes. He has a wispy, brown mustache over his pale pink lips, which are closed. He has a slight double chin and his reddish-brown hair falls to his shoulders. His wide, brimmed hat has a tall crown, which tapers a bit near the top. His black cloak falls over his arms and body, and has a wide, flat, white collar. Two white tassels hang below the split down the front of the collar. His left hand, to our right, is braced against the arm of a chair, and he rests his hand around the wooden end of the chair's arm. The wall behind him is brick-red with a coffee-brown rectangle to our left. Two vertical, fawn-brown stripes run down the red wall to our right, behind the man. Brushstrokes are visible in some areas, as in the man’s face, and a network of cracks runs across the surface of the canvas.
Rembrandt van Rijn, Portrait of a Man in a Tall Hat, c. 1663, oil on canvas, Widener Collection, 1942.9.69

Portrait of a Man in a Tall Hat

Rembrandt van Rijn · c. 1663 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1942.9.69

A windmill stands on a promontory cutting into a waterway under a partially stormy sky in this square landcape painting. The promontory and mill are painted in muted tones of brown and rust orange, while steel-gray and white clouds encircle a topaz-blue sky above. The promontory juts into the scene from our left, and the front of the windmill is angled to our right so its golden-tan sails catch the light. Silvery water winds around the base of the promontory and extends to a dark green, shadowy bank on the far side. A boat in the lower right corner of the composition is rowed by a man wearing a red jacket and cap. A path runs to the water’s edge from the left edge of the painting, in front of the promontory’s retaining wall, which is shored up with stones or panels. A person in dark clothing close to the windmill seems to rest their arms on the retaining wall, their back to us. Closer to us, a woman holds a child’s hand as they walk down the path to the bank. A bearded man with tattered brown clothes and bare feet stands leaning against the wall near a woman wearing burnt-orange garment. She sits or kneels at the water’s edge in front of a basket of clothes and holds up a brown cloth. The olive-green forms of the trees on the far bank are reflected in the water, and closer inspection reveals two cows near the water there. Charcoal-gray clouds pile up along the left of the painting and span the top edge. There is a brilliant blue sky beyond and a screen of white clouds near the horizon, which comes about a third of the way up the canvas.
Rembrandt van Rijn, The Mill, 1645/1648, oil on canvas, Widener Collection, 1942.9.62

The Mill

Rembrandt van Rijn · 1645/1648 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1942.9.62