The Watering Can (Emblems: The Garden)

1913

Roger de La Fresnaye

Artist, French, 1885 - 1925

Mottled, geometric shapes painted in shades of peanut brown, beige, grass and spruce green, smoky gray, golden and buttercup yellow, and topaz and lapis blue are arranged across this wide, horizontal, abstract painting. Two black half-moon forms to the left are openings to a pair of stylized watering cans. Two tools on brown handles suggest a rake and a scythe at the center of the composition, and a sickle lies on a field of green and tan between the watering cans and rake. Behind this and to the left, a rectangle with a downward-scalloped, terracotta-orange top edge is reminiscent of a garden wall, and a brown and black form with a wheel to the right could be a wheelbarrow. The objects are collected against a background painted loosely with blocky areas in shades of blue.

Media Options

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Artwork overview


Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Paul Mellon [1907-1999], Upperville, Virginia; bequest 1999 to NGA, with life interest to his wife, Rachel Lambert Mellon [1910-2014].

Associated Names

Exhibition History

2014

  • Helena Rubinstein: Beauty Is Power, The Jewish Museum, New York; Boca Raton Museum of Art, 2014-2015, not in catalogue.

Wikidata ID

Q20191795


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