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Vose Galleries

Robert C. Vose
Vose Galleries

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This painting shows a woman in profile, sitting at a wooden table strewn with papers, her body angled away from us. She has pale skin and rosy cheeks, and her light brown hair is tied up and adorned with a light blue headband. She wears a light-colored gown that appears mostly white, but also has streaks of light pink, yellow, pale green, and light blue. She is writing on one of the sheets of paper that is scattered on the table. Six potted plants with long green stems and white flowers line the edge of the table across from her. She sits in a room with a brownish-gray wooden floor and pale green walls. There is a bookshelf to the left of the woman, with a framed photograph, a small bowl, and three long white candlesticks of varying heights on top of it. Above the bookshelf is a tall window ledge which is also lined with leafy plants in pink, yellow, light blue, and white pots. White light shines in from between the plants, casting a bright glow on the back of the woman and faint shadows below the table and the chair she sits on. The brushstrokes of the painting, especially those in the background, are visible, giving the painting a slightly hazy quality.
Mary Bradish Titcomb, The Writer, c. 1912, oil on canvas, Gift of Funds from James and Christiane Valone in honor of Nancy K. Anderson, 2023.135.1

The Writer

Mary Bradish Titcomb · c. 1912 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  2023.135.1

A bearded man with wrinkled, peachy skin and reddened cheeks sits and smokes a pipe on a wooden box in a landscape in this vertical painting. The man’s body faces us, and he peers at us with dark eyes under heavy, bushy white brows. Wrinkles line his forehead, the corners of his eyes, and his cheeks. He has a bulbous nose and a gray beard, and the long-stem pipe is pinched in his downturned mouth. His shaggy gray hair is covered by a cardinal-red cap. He wears a blousy daffodil-yellow shirt, which is loose around the neck, faded and patched blue pants, and scuffed brown boots. His legs are crossed with one knee over the other, and one fist rests in his lap. The other elbow is propped on a pyramid of three wooden barrels stacked on their sides to our left. A few bits of bricks or red stones are near the man’s feet, and a wooden houseboat with a low-pitched roof is in the near distance, to our right. The platform under the structure floats on a river, which is lined with trees to our right and mountains to our left. The sunset warms the face of the mountains and the trees to red and gold. Sage-green and peach clouds billow above the man, dividing the sky diagonally in front of bright blue sky beyond. The artist signed and dated the painting in the lower left corner, “G.C. Bingham 1850.”
George Caleb Bingham, Mississippi Boatman, 1850, oil on canvas, John Wilmerding Collection, 2004.66.1

Mississippi Boatman

George Caleb Bingham · 1850 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  2004.66.1

The head and shoulders of a young woman with gold-tinted, pale skin looks out over our right shoulder from against a tomato-red background in this vertical painting. The portrait is created with mostly visible, sinuous brushstrokes that make some details indistinct. With her body facing us, the woman nearly fills this composition. She looks in our direction with large, dark eyes under almost flat brows. She has an oval face, a long nose, and her full, slightly downturned coral-red lips are closed. Her chestnut-brown hair falls loosely down her back. Some locks pour over her left shoulder, to our right, and her hair is tucked behind her other ear. Her hair and clothing are especially loosely painted, so it is difficult to make out what she wears. An area of beige could be a scarf draped around her neck and down her front, or a dark, coffee-brown cloak could be open over a lighter garment beneath. The red background is painted with long, visible brushstrokes, and three dark brown spots are clustered against the background over her right shoulder, to our left.
James McNeill Whistler, Alice Butt, c. 1895, oil on canvas, Gift of Curt H. Reisinger, 1948.16.2

Alice Butt

James McNeill Whistler · c. 1895 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1948.16.2

This painting depicts a side view of a seated woman facing the right, showing the upper half of her body and the top of her legs. She is sitting on a dark wooden chair with horizontal slats visible at the back. The woman is positioned in profile, looking slightly downward, and holding a white cup and saucer with both hands. The woman has fair skin, a small nose, and a small chin. The top of her face and her hair are hidden by the large hat she wears, which is adorned with colorful fruits and flowers in shades of white, yellow, light pink, and light green. She wears a blue and white dress with frilled sleeves. The background is a beige wall.
Gretchen W. Rogers, Five O'Clock, c. 1910, oil on canvas, Gift of Funds from James and Christiane Valone in memory of James F. Penrose, 2022.131.1

Five O'Clock

Gretchen W. Rogers · c. 1910 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  2022.131.1

We look across a wide, low clearing at a mountain rising beyond rocky hills, which are mostly covered in pines and blazing red and orange autumn trees, in this horizontal landscape painting. The green grass of the clearing is littered with dead trees and stumps. Beyond a narrow opening between the hills, almost at the center of the composition, a massive mountain towers against the powder-blue sky, nearly reaching the top edge of the painting. The mountain’s jagged face is mottled with warm tones of cinnamon, rust, and caramel brown. The scene is bathed in warm light coming from our right but pewter-gray storm clouds move in from the upper left to encircle the mountain peak. Closest to us, a line of broken tree trunks spans the width of the painting, mixed with scarlet-red, marigold-orange, and green vegetation and reeds. A silvery pond lies just beyond them to our left. Tiny in scale within the landscape, a horse and rider gallop along a wide dirt road emerging from the lower right toward a white house nestled at the foot of the hill to our left. The rider wears a knee-length, denim-blue tunic and red leggings. Upon closer inspection, two children and a white dog become visible, walking toward the rider. A straw-yellow structure sits against the hill to our right. A horse-drawn carriage moves away from the house in the far distance, where the road curves toward the notch. The artist signed and dated the painting as if he wrote directly onto a broken trunk in the lower left corner of the painting: “T. Cole 1839.”
Thomas Cole, A View of the Mountain Pass Called the Notch of the White Mountains (Crawford Notch), 1839, oil on canvas, Andrew W. Mellon Fund, 1967.8.1

A View of the Mountain Pass Called the Notch of the White Mountains (Crawford Notch)

Thomas Cole · 1839 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1967.8.1

A turreted, sprawling stone castle, bronzed by the setting sun, crowns a rocky cliff at the center of this horizontal landscape painting. A round turret rises in the center of the castle’s jumble of blocky, square buildings. The buildings are dramatically outlined against a mass of roiling charcoal-gray and indigo-blue clouds, which are edged in peach, in the upper right corner. Barely noticeable amid the hulking structure, a scarlet-red flag flutters from a window in the tower overlooking a distant crag to our right. On that distant mountain, a column of amber smoke rises to mingle with the clouds above a bright band of sunlight on the horizon. Low trees and bushes grow around the base of the battlements. The land dips steeply toward us to a river below the cliff. Through the tangle of trees, a dirt road winds down the hill to a bridge of pale stone that crosses the river in front of us, to our left of center. Groups of helmeted horsemen cross the bridge, passing under a stone archway at its center. Near the bridge, tiny in scale, a herd of goats capers on the road near the horsemen as they ride on in a double column coming toward us along the clay-brown road. One rider carries a red pennant fluttering in the breeze. The riders wear ruby-red tunics and carry upright lances and shields. Light glints off their armor and helmets as they head to our right, toward the dark mass of tangled trees and rocky cliff on the border of the picture. A copse of low, gnarled trees grows near the opposite edge of the painting, to our left. Behind these trees and riders stretches a river valley spanned by another stone bridge. A cluster of people can barely be seen near and along that massive bridge in the distance. Beyond, buildings and a tall, square tower are lit by fires belching clouds of smoke. A heavy bank of gray clouds obscures the rest of the valley. Birds soar in the mist near a distant cliff, where flames and more smoke rise behind a boulder. In the deep distance to our left, a high, craggy cliff topped by a sprinkling of snow surges above the blanket of fog and clouds. In front of a clear, blue sky, it is also bathed in coral-red by the setting sun.
Jasper Francis Cropsey, The Spirit of War, 1851, oil on canvas, Avalon Fund, 1978.12.1

The Spirit of War

Jasper Francis Cropsey · 1851 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1978.12.1

Facing away from us, a light-skinned woman blowing a silver horn stands in a grassy landscape in this vertical painting. The woman is lit brightly from the upper right, making her ankle-length, white dress glow. The sleeves are rolled back to her elbows, and a black ribbon fastens her blond hair in a net. We see the right edge of her cheekbone, and her skin is smooth and pale. She holds the horn up with her right hand and plants the back of her other hand on her hip. She stands with her heels together, wearing black boots. A strong wind from our right lifts and twists the hem of her dress and the thin ties at her waist. She stands on a patch of dirt within a leaf-strewn, grassy lawn. The edge of a building with wooden siding, presumably a house, runs parallel to the left edge of the painting. A vine grows up the corner of the house, and the very edge of a window frame is seen along the left side. At the corner of the house, two plants grow in pots, and an overturned, metal jug leans against the wall. An expanse of bright green grass stretches in front of the young woman. The land dips and rises a short distance away. A reddish-brown cow lies in the field beyond as black and white chickens peck the grass. The dark green canopies of trees growing to our left fill the top third of the painting. In the deep distance, a few dots of paint indicate people wearing white and red, working on a strip of brown land. One man works a plow pulled by a brown horse. A mounded, golden haystack sits farther back in that field. A strip of blue along the horizon could be water or distant hills. The turquoise sky above peeks through the canopies of the trees. The artist signed and dated the painting in the lower left corner, “WINSLOW HOMER. 1870.”
Winslow Homer, The Dinner Horn (Blowing the Horn at Seaside), 1870, oil on canvas, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 1994.59.2

The Dinner Horn (Blowing the Horn at Seaside)

Winslow Homer · 1870 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1994.59.2

Two children with pale, peachy skin stand and sit on a rocking horse in a wallpapered interior in this square painting. Both children have short, honey-brown hair, high foreheads, dark blue eyes, and small, rounded noses. Their cheeks are smooth and the corners of their thin, pale pink lips curl slightly up. Both wear dresses with puffy, elbow-length sleeves, white collars, calf-length skirts, and wide, white pantaloons over white stockings. At the center of the composition, one child sits astride the rocking horse, which faces our right in profile. The skirt of the forest-green dress splits at the waist to fall open on either side of a white garment underneath. That child’s head turns back over one shoulder to look down and to our left. One black shoe rests in a stirrup, and the child holds a riding crop in one hand. The horse is dappled with fawn brown and white, and has a parchment-brown mane and tail. The horse’s eye we can see is black and its red mouth is open around the bridle and reins. The second child stands at the back of the rocking horse, hands resting on the crossbar that connects the toy's long, curving rockers. That child wears a crimson-red dress and holds the red ribbon of a straw bonnet in one hand. The hair is parted down the middle and that child looks at us. A black cap with a curved, shiny visor and tassels hanging from the crown rests on the base of the rocking horse. The rug has a stylized, terracotta-orange floral pattern against a pine-green background. The wall behind the children is striped with wide bands of golden yellow and moss green. A door with a gold-colored doorknob is swung inward to our left, behind the child in red, to reveal the profile of a staircase beyond. To our right, just behind the horse’s head, a wooden table is draped with a cloth patterned with vines and leaves in dark green against a pea-green background. A lamp with a tall, spindly brass base is topped with a squat, round white globe. A folded newspaper behind the child in green could rest on the table, or could be held by that child. An inscription on the masthead of the paper begins, “Dai.”
Robert Peckham, The Hobby Horse, c. 1840, oil on canvas, Gift of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch, 1955.11.23

The Hobby Horse

Robert Peckham · c. 1840 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1955.11.23

The image shows a landscape from a slightly elevated point of view, looking across towards water and hills in the distance. The horizon is positioned below the midpoint of the image, with a body of water meeting the base of large hills. To the right, a castle stands on a rocky outcrop. The brushstrokes provide a fluid quality to the landscape. The color palette is dominated by warm pinks, soft browns, and hints of pale blue. A small figure in a red garment and another sitting figure are on the grassy terrain. White sails are visible in the distance on the water.
Robert Walter Weir, Castle on a River, early 19th century, watercolor over graphite on wove paper, Corcoran Collection (Museum Purchase, William A. Clark Fund, 1965), 2015.19.1033

Castle on a River

Robert Walter Weir · early 19th century · watercolor over graphite on wove paper ·  Accession ID  2015.19.1033

A wide, placid river winds through a hazy landscape with a grassy bank to the left and a sheer rock formation to the right in this horizontal painting. The water tumbles down step-like rapids near the center of the composition in the middle distance. To our right, a ruined building nestled among trees stands atop a rocky outcropping that extends about a third of the way across the painting. Two tall, spindly trees grow on a lower, grassy bank to the left. A waterfall pours from a narrow gap in more rocky cliffs to the left, farther back than the rapids. Craggy, pointed mountains are pale purple in the deep distance. In the top third of the canvas, smoky-purple clouds curve along the corners around a sky glowing pearl white. The artist signed and dated the painting as if he had inscribed the information on the base of the cliff near the lower right corner of the composition: “T. DOUGHTY BOSTON 1834.”
Thomas Doughty, Fanciful Landscape, 1834, oil on canvas, Gift of the Avalon Foundation, 1963.9.2

Fanciful Landscape

Thomas Doughty · 1834 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1963.9.2

Bibliography

1941

  • "Four Generations." Art Digest 15 (March 15, 1941): 20.

1981

  • Vose, Robert C., Jr. "Boston's Vose Galleries: A Family Affair." Archives of American Art Journal 21, no. 1 (1981): 8-20