Provenance

Hôtel Drouot

Hôtel des Commissaires-Priseurs
Hôtel Drouot

French

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Painted in mostly in jewel tones of topaz and aquamarine blue, and sage, spring, and pine green, a meadow is enclosed by a wooden fence, against a landscape of gently rolling hills under a vibrant sky in this horizontal painting. The scene is loosely painted with visible brushstrokes. Touches of white, cotton candy-pink, ruby-red, and azure-blue paint in the long grasses close to us could be wildflowers. A few swipes of straw yellow and pale and lapis blue could represent two people, standing and kneeling, in the field close to the fence. The rickety fence starts at the right edge of the canvas and extends into the distance, angling away from us to our left. Rolling hills beyond are a patchwork of emerald green and caramel brown, and are dotted with trees with full, dark green canopies. One brown building sits on the crest of a hill to our right of center. The horizon comes about halfway up this picture, and the turquoise-colored sky is dotted with white puffs of clouds. The artist signed and dated the painting in the lower right corner, “Sisley 75.”
Alfred Sisley, Meadow, 1875, oil on canvas, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection, 1970.17.83

Meadow

Alfred Sisley · 1875 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1970.17.83

This painting depicts a man seated on an ornate chair, looking to the right. He has fair skin, grey curly hair, and is wearing a brown coat with gold trim and gray fur over a frilly white shirt. He is holding a large book open with his left hand, and his right hand rests on a stack of books. In the background, there is a blue drapery that partially obscures shelves with scientific equipment and glass jars. There is a dark gray column on the left.
Jean-Marc Nattier, Joseph Bonnier de la Mosson, 1745, oil on canvas, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1961.9.30

Joseph Bonnier de la Mosson

Jean-Marc Nattier · 1745 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1961.9.30

The sculpture is a round, bronze medallion depicting the profile of a man with short, curly hair. The portrait is in a classical style, with detailed facial features including a prominent nose and lips. Around the edge of the medallion, there is embossed text: "MARCHIO ESTENESIS LEONELLVS," along with decorative elements resembling foliage. The bronze material gives the medallion a dark, metallic appearance, with a patina that highlights the detailed engravings and contours. The medallion also has a small hole at the top.
Pisanello, Leonello d'Este, 1407-1450, Marquess of Ferrara 1441 [obverse], c. 1440/1443, bronze, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1957.14.598.a

Leonello d'Este, 1407-1450, Marquess of Ferrara 1441 [obverse]

Pisanello · c. 1440/1443 · bronze ·  Accession ID  1957.14.598.a

The sculpture is a round medallion featuring three human faces with curly hair arranged in a row facing forward. The central face is the most prominent. The medallion is dark brown, likely made of bronze or a similar metal. Intricate carvings surround the faces, including two cornucopias filled with wheat and fruit. The top inscription reads “OPVS” and the bottom reads “PISANI.PICTORIS.” There is a small hole at the top for suspension. The design suggests a functional and artistic object from the past, intended for close viewing due to its size as a medallion.
Pisanello, Head with Three Infantile Faces [reverse], c. 1440/1444, bronze, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1957.14.598.b

Head with Three Infantile Faces [reverse]

Pisanello · c. 1440/1444 · bronze ·  Accession ID  1957.14.598.b

A shaft of sunlight illuminates a bone-white, barren tree trunk that has fallen across a stream within a dense wood in this horizontal landscape painting. The water closest to us is deep in shadow, and the surface closer to the opposite bank is a shimmering moss green. One spiraling, ash-brown tree trunk rises out of the stream to our right of center, and another hunched, gnarled trunk grows from the far bank, to our left. Tiny in scale, two dogs stand at the water’s edge between the gnarled tree and the fallen trunk beyond. The dirt earth where the tree had stood is sand-colored, and it is surrounded with pea and pine-green grass and growth. Nearly lost in shadow, to our right, three men gather just beyond the fallen tree. Two ride donkeys while the third strides toward them with his rifle resting on his shoulder, leading another donkey. All three men wear dark jackets and trousers and tan-colored hats. A fourth man rides a donkey into the scene from the right side. Just above his head, slivers of blue water and a pale pink sky peek through the tree trunks. A fifth donkey faces us from our side of the fallen tree and a third dog runs toward the water. The impenetrable forest reaches off the top edge of the painting, the trees painted in hunter, olive, and sage green. Many of the tree trunks are wrapped with vines.
Horace Vernet, Departure for the Hunt in the Pontine Marshes, 1833, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Fund, 2004.38.1

Departure for the Hunt in the Pontine Marshes

Horace Vernet · 1833 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  2004.38.1

We look slightly down onto a bare, gnarled tree near a gray, dirt path, which leads back to a hamlet in this horizontal landscape painting. The scene is loosely painted with visible brushstrokes, so many details are indistinct. To our left, the gray tree trunk sways to the left as the branches of its skeletal canopy nearly span the width of the painting. The path extends from the lower right corner of the painting into the distance, around a lattice-like fence, which also runs across the width of the canvas. To our right and facing away from us, a person wearing brown pants, a sky-blue shirt, and a gray cap leans his forearms on the chest-high fence as he presumably talks with the woman standing on the other side. She wears a long navy-blue dress with a sea-blue apron and a tan hat. The land enclosed within the fence is painted with bands of peanut brown and sage green. Another woman wearing a slate-blue skirt, a sky-blue shirt, and a white cap walks away from us down the path using a cane or walking stick. To her right is a thicket of loosely painted moss-green and rust-brown foliage. Across a gully in the distance, a white picket fence separates us from the small village. The buildings have white or beige walls and pitched terracotta-red, tan, or denim-blue roofs. Beyond these structures, flax-brown trees are silhouetted against a light blue sky with fluffy white clouds. The artist signed and dated the painting in dark brown in the lower left corner: “C. Pissarro. 1872.”
Camille Pissarro, The Fence, 1872, oil on canvas, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 1985.64.31

The Fence

Camille Pissarro · 1872 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1985.64.31

Shown from the lap up, a pale-skinned woman wearing a long gown and wide-brimmed hat sits in front of a low stone wall in this vertical portrait painting. The woman takes up the lower right quadrant of the composition. Her body faces our left, and she looks off in that direction so we see her in profile. She has large eyes, a delicate nose, round, flushed cheeks, and a pointed chin. Her blond hair is pulled back under a black covering at the back of her head. The underside of her hat brim is steel gray, and a carnation-pink feather droops over one side. The rounded, straw-yellow crown is just visible above the grim. A gold and pearl earring dangles from the ear we see, and a smoke-gray, translucent cloth is tied around her shoulders. The bodice of her dress is coral red on the upper chest and patterned with gold stripes and leaves against brown on the torso and elbow-length sleeves. The white garment she wears underneath is gathered in puffs just under the elbows, beyond the end of the brown sleeves. Her apricot-orange skirt has a sheen, suggesting satin, and a translucent white apron is tied around the waist. She holds a hoop, about the diameter of a human head, in both hands. She adds colorful flowers to the hoop and more blossoms lie in her lap. Her far elbow rests on the stone wall that spans the bottom third of the painting. The front face of the wall is carved in low relief with a sunflower, roses, and other flowers. A crack runs down through the top of the wall and curves toward the woman. A stone fountain rises from the ledge to our left. A tall base is topped by a stylized fish with water trickling from its open mouth. Also part of the carved fountain, the head of a small child standing astride the fish is cut off by the top edge of the panel. Shadowy trees nearly fill the space beyond the wall, but a clearing is visible through a small gap near the woman’s face. There, a man sitting on the grass wraps his arms around the woman sitting next to him. A dome, towers, and rooflines are nickel-gray in the deep distance beyond. The artist signed the work as if he had carved the wall near the woman to read, “G. Schalcken.”
Godefridus Schalcken, Woman Weaving a Crown of Flowers, c. 1675/1680, oil on panel, The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund, 2005.26.1

Woman Weaving a Crown of Flowers

Godefridus Schalcken · c. 1675/1680 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  2005.26.1

A mostly nude young woman carved from cream-white marble sits on a rock formation in this free-standing sculpture. In this photograph, her body faces us, but her head turns to our left. She has a long nose and small mouth. Her wavy, upswept hair is wrapped across the top with a braid that hangs down the back of her neck, over her shoulder, and it falls between her breasts. With her left hand, to our right, up near her shoulder, she holds one end of a cloth that wraps around her back and across her hips. Her other hand rests down by her side and holds a shell with shallow grooves. Her left foot extends slightly forward of the right, making the knees uneven. At her feet lie two stylized sea creatures with round heads, deep-set eyes, and large lips that emerge from choppy waves. The sculpture sits on a veined, pink marble base carved with the word “GALATEE.” The background is fog gray, and the sculpture casts a shadow to our right.
Robert Le Lorrain, Galatea, 1701, marble, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1952.5.105

Galatea

Robert Le Lorrain · 1701 · marble ·  Accession ID  1952.5.105

A bearded man kneels before a bishop in front of a crowd gathered outside a church in this vertical painting. The people all have pale skin. The bishop is to our left, though he stands angled to our right on the church steps. His face is lined and his eyebrows furrowed as he looks into the distance to our right. He holds up one hand with the thumb and first two fingers extended. His tall, pointed white mitre hat is widely edged with gold and jewels. A saucer-sized gold medallion fastens the two sides of his long, gold brocade robe. Under that, he wears a brick-red garment over a white shirt visible at his neck and wrists. Four clean-shaven clergymen stand behind him. The one closest to us wears white and his blond hair is cut into a ring around his head. He holds a hooked staff, a crozier, and his body blocks the others. The kneeling man, to our right, presses his hands together in prayer as he looks up at the bishop. The kneeling man wears an off-white cloth tied around his head and plum-purple, gold, and pine-green robes. A black, oval object, perhaps a cap, lies on the church step next to his knee. About fifteen men, women, and children line up beyond the kneeling man, forming a loose backward C-curve through the center of the scene. They are dressed in rose-pink, lemon or mustard-yellow, avocado-green, blue, or orange garments. At the back of the queue and seen in the near distance between the kneeling man and bishop, two men reach out to support a third man lying on the ground. The prone man looks with wild eyes and a gaping mouth at a green demon hovering overhead. The group occupies a plaza flanked by the beige stone church on the left and a large tan building with arched windows on the right. Statues and carvings fill the arched portals of the church beyond the bishop. The space is enclosed with more buildings set farther back from the two closer structures. A few wispy clouds float against the azure-blue sky overhead.   
Master of Saint Giles, Anonymous Artist, Episodes from the Life of a Bishop Saint, c. 1500, oil on panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1952.2.14

Episodes from the Life of a Bishop Saint

Master of Saint Giles, Anonymous Artist · c. 1500 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  1952.2.14

Warm light coming from the left illuminates four men standing in pairs on either side of a dirt road that winds between rocky, tree-studded hills and a misty river in this almost square landscape painting. The trees have tall, gnarled, brown trunks with high canopies of sage, olive, and forest green while others have golden yellow leaves. The road curves in a C-shape along the foot of the hills that rise up the right side of the composition, their craggy faces painted in warm tones of sand, fawn, and caramel brown. Closest to us is rocky terrain covered with scrubby plants and two moss-covered trees growing next to a broken tree trunk that separates us from the men. The trees are just right of center and divide the scene vertically. The two men to the right of the tree rest among boulders next to the road. One sits and the other stands, and each holds a tall staff. A light-gray, bearded goat lies to the right of the men and closer inspection reveals another grazing nearby. On the left, one man sitting astride a donkey turns his head away from us to look at the man standing just behind him. The men are all simply dressed in knee-length breeches, shirts, and sleeveless coats in shades of brick red, ivory, and tan, or ginger brown, and wear tall, wide brimmed hats. A man driving cattle approaches them from farther back along the road. Beyond the tall trees near the center, the hills slope down to a winding river fringed with trees. The river flows into the distance, past headlands jutting into the water, and ends at a tall mountain rising from the low horizon. A thin wash of butter yellow creates a hazy glow over the river, headlands, and distant mountain. A pale robin's egg-blue sky scattered with petal-pink and dusty rose-colored clouds fills the top of the scene.
Jan Both, An Italianate Evening Landscape, c. 1650, oil on canvas, Patrons' Permanent Fund, 2000.91.1

An Italianate Evening Landscape

Jan Both · c. 1650 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  2000.91.1