Five Cones

1990-1992

Ursula von Rydingsvard

Artist, American, born Germany, 1942

Ursula von Rydingsvard

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On View

East Building Mezzanine, Landing

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    cedar and graphite

  • Credit Line

    Gift of Sherry and Joel Mallin

  • Dimensions

    overall: 248.92 × 274.32 × 152.4 cm (98 × 108 × 60 in.)
    gross weight (with base, see components for individual weights): 4796 lb. (2175.451 kg)
    gross weight (total weight of wooden components): 2376 lb. (1077.747 kg)
    gross weight (base without hardware): 2420 lb. (1097.705 kg)

  • Accession Number

    2011.154.1

More About this Artwork

Shown from the knees up, a woman stands facing and looking at us with her head tilted a little to our left in this vertical portrait painting. She has pale skin, a heart-shaped face with rosy cheeks, and a rose-pink bow mouth. Thin, arched, sable-brown eyebrows frame her gray eyes. A wreath of pale pink flowers and curling white ostrich feathers crowns her long gray hair, which is piled high on her head. Loose curly tendrils brush both shoulders. Her glowing, silver satin gown is trimmed with delicate sheer lace around the wide, plunging neckline and sleeves, and has a pink sash around her narrow waist. Pearl bracelets adorn her wrists. She leans to her left, our right, to rest her left elbow against a waist-high, cinnamon-brown stone pedestal, which is decorated with a bronze-colored garland and bow on the side facing us. A ring of blue, yellow, red, and pink flowers, woven with strands of ivy, dangles in the hand resting on the pedestal. Her right hand hangs loosely by her side. Along the left edge of the dimly lit background, a tree with a thick trunk angles into the upper left corner. A smaller sapling grows just in front of it. On the right, bushes with olive and fern-green leaves dotted with lilac-purple flecks rise above the pedestal. Dark clouds fill most of the top third of the canvas but they part around her head to reveal the soft blue sky. The artist signed and dated the work in white in the lower right corner, “L. Vigée Le Brun 1782.”

Article:  Your Tour of Women Artists at the National Gallery

See these 10 works by trailblazing women artists during your next visit.

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Joel and Sherry Mallin, Pound Ridge, New York; gift 2011 to NGA.

Associated Names

Bibliography

2014

  • Donovan, Molly. "Gifts and Acquisitons: Ursula von Rydingsvard, Five Cones." National Gallery of Art Bulletin no. 51 (Fall 2014): 23-24, repro.

2021

  • Sturman, Shelley, and Molly Donovan. "The Artist as Primary Source of the Conservation of Contemporary Sculpture." Facture: conservation, science, art history 5 (2021): 174-202, figs. 14, 15.

Wikidata ID

Q63864468

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