View of the Waterfalls at Tivoli

1788

Jean Joseph Xavier Bidauld

Painter, French, 1758 - 1846

Fed by two waterfalls, an olive-green stream with foamy whitewater spills toward us, cascading over rocks and boulders in this vertical painting. Sunlight cuts across the sheer, rust and caramel-brown cliffs that fill the composition beyond the waterfalls, throwing the area closest to us in shadow. The stream is fed by a tall, thin waterfall to our left and a wider, lower waterfall to our right. One dark rock pokes out of the pool at the foot of the waterfalls. Tumbling forward over a broad, horizontal ledge about a third of the way up from the bottom, the stream breaks over massive rocks into fan-shaped cascades. The rushing white water is painted with choppy brushstrokes. Dark green shrubs are tucked into the corners and crevices of the cliffs and rocks.

Media Options

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On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 91


Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on paper on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Gift of Fern and George Wachter

  • Dimensions

    overall: 50.8 x 38.1 cm (20 x 15 in.)
    framed: 67.3 x 54.6 x 5.1 cm (26 1/2 x 21 1/2 x 2 in.)

  • Accession

    2005.140.1


Artwork history & notes

Provenance

(Sale, Sotheby's, New York, 23 January 2003, no. 111); George and Fern Wachter, New York; gift 2005 to NGA.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

2020

  • True to Nature: Open-Air Painting in Europe, 1780–1870, National Gallery of Art, Washington; Fondation Custodia, Collection Frits Lugt, Paris; The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, 2020 - 2022, no. 22, repro.

Bibliography

2009

  • Conisbee, Philip, et al. French Paintings of the Fifteenth through the Eighteenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 2009: no. 1, 9-10, color repro.

Inscriptions

lower right: J.ph.Bidauld / 1788.; upper center reverse: grote de la sibylle a Tivoli / 1788

Wikidata ID

Q20179622


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