Leo Nardus

Nardus, Leonardus

Dutch, 1868 - 1955

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North Italian 15th Century, Francesco Sforza, probably c. 1480/1500, oil on panel, Widener Collection, 1942.9.4

Francesco Sforza

North Italian 15th Century · probably c. 1480/1500 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  1942.9.4

Florentine 16th Century, Portrait of a Young Woman, 1530/1540, oil on panel, Widener Collection, 1942.9.51

Portrait of a Young Woman

Florentine 16th Century · 1530/1540 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  1942.9.51

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 lap up, a young woman sits behind the back corner of a gray, stone platform, supporting a small naked baby boy standing on the ledge in this vertical painting. Both have pale, almost golden skin tones and blond hair. The woman sits with her body angled to our right, and she tilts her head down toward the baby, looking past him with hooded, brown eyes. Her wavy hair is tied back and held with a thin red band above her forehead. A white veil over the crown of her head drapes down the back of her neck and wraps loosely around her shoulders. She wears a flowing, wide-sleeved robe of cobalt blue trimmed with a band of gold embroidery in designs resembling calligraphic letters. The navy-blue lining, seen at the sleeves and collar, is densely flecked with gold dots. The hems of her rose-pink dress, visible at her forearms and chest, are edged with gold embroidery and white lace. The baby stands on the ledge in front of the woman, slightly to our right. Her right hand, on our left, rests on the baby’s right shoulder with one finger brushing his cheek, while her other hand supports his other side at his waist. The child stands on pudgy legs with his left foot forward, hips sharply tilted down toward his left hip. His body faces us, but his brown eyes look over and past our left shoulder, into the distance. He has short curly hair, a round face and cheeks, and delicate facial features. His hands are raised to his chest so the thumb of his right hand touches the palm of his left. Flat, plate-like golden halos seem to rest atop both of their heads. Each halo has a black rim and is decorated with rings of dots. Filling the background immediately behind them, crisscrossing branches of a thorny rosebush fills the panel. More than two dozen white, pink, and red roses are shown in all stages, from bud to bloom, and the branches are lined with jagged-edged, deep green leaves. The roses are set against a cloudless sky that fades from powder blue along the top to nearly white along the bottom.
Anonymous Artist, Madonna and Child, c. 1470, tempera on poplar panel, Widener Collection, 1942.9.50

Madonna and Child

Anonymous Artist · c. 1470 · tempera on poplar panel ·  Accession ID  1942.9.50

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

Giuliano Bugiardini, Leonardo de' Ginori, c. 1528, oil on panel, Widener Collection, 1942.9.36

Leonardo de' Ginori

Giuliano Bugiardini · c. 1528 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  1942.9.36

We look out onto a landscape with low, grassy hills to the left, a lake to the right, and a brick building in the center distance below a sky filled with towering white clouds in this horizontal painting. A wooden fence closer to us crosses the landscape from the lower left corner and disappears where the land slopes down to meet the water at the center of the painting. Several black and white cows graze in the field beyond the fence to our left. Two men in a wooden boat pull in nets on the lake to our right near a pair of swans. The lake crosses the composition in the near distance, disappearing into a culvert farther back. A donkey pulls a small carriage with two people near a bridge that crosses the lake in the distance to our left. The brick manor house is visible through a break in the full, deep green trees that line the horizon, which comes halfway up the composition. The clouds cast noticeable shadows in the brightly sunlit scene.
John Constable, Wivenhoe Park, Essex, 1816, oil on canvas, Widener Collection, 1942.9.10

Wivenhoe Park, Essex

John Constable · 1816 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1942.9.10

French 18th Century, The Rape of the Sabine Women, c. 1770, oil on paper on canvas, Widener Collection, 1942.9.79

The Rape of the Sabine Women

French 18th Century · c. 1770 · oil on paper on canvas ·  Accession ID  1942.9.79

Ferrarese 15th Century, Madonna and Child with Angels, c. 1455/1470, tempera on poplar panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1939.1.115

Madonna and Child with Angels

Ferrarese 15th Century · c. 1455/1470 · tempera on poplar panel ·  Accession ID  1939.1.115

Shown from the shoulders up, the head of a pale-skinned, elderly man with a long beard and short brown hair takes up most of this vertical portrait painting. The man’s face is turned slightly to our right, and his amber eyes gaze in that direction. Thick strokes of taupe, smoke gray, harvest gold, and flecks of black paint form his thick, chest-length beard. Patches of peach, butterscotch yellow, and rust red create his face. Wide squiggles of chestnut and tawny brown suggest short curls under a coffee-brown cap. The loose painting technique blurs his features, and his shoulders are suggested by sloping areas of coffee and chestnut brown below his head. He is lit from our left so the far side of his face is in shadow, and he is set against an earth-brown background.
Dutch 17th Century, Head of Saint Matthew, probably early 1660s, oil on panel, Widener Collection, 1942.9.58

Head of Saint Matthew

Dutch 17th Century · probably early 1660s · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  1942.9.58

Bibliography

1989

  • Musée du Louvre. Les Donateurs du Louvre. Paris, 1989: 280.

2003

  • Minty, Nancy T. Dutch and Flemish Seventeeth-Century Art in America, 1800-1940: Collections, Connoisseurship and Perceptions. Ph.D. diss, New York University, 2003:181-183

2007

  • Lopez, Jonathan. "'Gross False Pretences' : The Misdeeds of Art Dealer Leo Nardus," Apollo ser. 2, 166, no. 548 (December 2007):76-83.