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Shown from the shins up, a pale-skinned, cleanshaven man wearing a black suit sits and looks out at us in this vertical portrait painting. His legs are crossed and knees angled to our left, but he turns his face to us. He has a round face with slight bags under his gray eyes, and his thin lips are closed. His cheeks and jowls are a bit fleshy with age, and short white hair is brushed back from his high forehead. He wears a double-breasted jacket over a white shirt and dark blue tie with white polka dots. A white pocket square peeks out of the breast pocket. Both of the man’s elbows rest along the wood arms of his chair, which is upholstered on the back and seat with ruby-red fabric. The supports under the arms are turned, and top of the vertical style holding up the backrest that we can see is carved. The chair is near the corner of a room with walls painted muted sage green and tan. Brushstrokes are visible throughout and are especially loose in the background. The artist signed and dated the canvas with red paint in the lower right corner, “Leopold Seyffert 53.”

Leopold Seyffert

Rush Harrison Kress, 1953

West Building, Main Floor — Founders Room

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 127 x 102.2 cm (50 x 40 1/4 in.)

Credit Line

Samuel H. Kress Collection

Accession Number

1961.9.93

Artists / Makers

Leopold Seyffert (artist) American, 1887 - 1956

Image Use

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Overview

After illness incapacitated his older brother Samuel Kress, in 1946, Rush Kress (1877-1963) took over leadership of the family's cultural foundation. The younger Kress expanded the collection from its largely Italian focus, adding masterpieces by such painters as Dürer, Grünewald, El Greco, Rubens, Watteau, and Ingres. He also acquired one of the world's great assemblages of Renaissance bronzes -- some 1,300 statuettes, plaquettes, and medals amassed over the years by a discerning European scholar. In addition to its gifts to the Gallery, the Kress Foundation distributed selections of key works to eighteen city museums and twenty-three universities throughout the nation. Leopold Gould Seyffert depicted both Kress brothers seated in Italian Renaissance-style armchairs, symbolizing their artistic interests.

Inscription

lower left: Leopold Seyffert / 53

Provenance

Commissioned by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[1] gift 1961 to NGA.

[1] See The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/1786.

Associated Names

Kress Foundation, Samuel H.

Exhibition History

1956: Fifteenth Anniversary Exhibition: A Survey of the Years 1941-1956, Portraits, Inc., New York, 1956, no. 44, repro.

Bibliography

1961: Walker, John, Guy Emerson, and Charles Seymour. Art Treasures for America: An Anthology of Paintings & Sculpture in the Samuel H. Kress Collection. London, 1961: XI, repro.

1970: American Paintings and Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1970: 98, repro.

1980: American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1980: 221, repro.

1991: Kopper, Philip. America's National Gallery of Art: A Gift to the Nation. New York, 1991: 183, repro.

1992: American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 335, repro.