Provenance

Jos Hessel

Hessel, Joseph

Belgian, 1859 - 1942

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A few pale brown buildings with terracotta red roofs are nestled among hills at the base of a towering, icy-blue mountain in this horizontal landscape painting. Only the pale indigo-violet shadows of the mountain are laid in, leaving the rest as the white of the canvas. The buildings and muted brown hills, blue shadows, and touches of sage green below are loosely painted with visible brushstrokes throughout around more blank areas of canvas.
Paul Cezanne, Montagne Sainte-Victoire, from near Gardanne, c. 1887, oil on canvas, Gift of the W. Averell Harriman Foundation in memory of Marie N. Harriman, 1972.9.4

Montagne Sainte-Victoire, from near Gardanne

Paul Cezanne · c. 1887 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1972.9.4

We look slightly down onto a balding, bearded man with pale, peachy skin and wearing a three-piece suit, seated in a wooden armchair behind an L-shaped desk, in this loosely painted vertical portrait. A tabby cat with a white chest sits on his lap. The room around them is packed with piles of papers, books, and paintings hung on scarlet-red walls. The man’s body faces us, and he looks off to our right under dark, bushy, peaked eyebrows. His round head is fringed with gray hair, and he has a full, light gray beard. His gray eyes are bloodshot beneath heavy lids, with dark rings underneath. He has a short nose, and the flesh of his cheeks hangs in loose paunches alongside his nose. Close inspection finds strokes of plum and lavender purple, mint and sage green, and ice blue creating highlights and shadows on this face. His left hand, to our right, hangs loosely over the arm of the chair, while his other hand gently rests around the chest of the small cat that sits on his lap. The man wears a chocolate-brown jacket over a charcoal-gray vest, and a dark bowtie with a white shirt that just shows at his throat and wrists. Reams of pink, yellow, white, green, and gold paper are arrayed on the desk in front of the man, and in tall, uneven piles to his left, with more on a chair against the wall behind him. A small paperweight globe of multicolored glass on a brass base rests on one sheet of paper on the desk. Two small and one large gilt-framed portraits hang on the velvety red wall in the background, and others are reflected in a gilt-framed mirror at the upper right corner of the painting. A white door with four horizontal panels is closed behind the man at the upper left corner. The brushwork in the painting is quick and loose, with touches of contrasting colors throughout. The artist signed and dated the lower left corner, “E. Vuillard 1912.”
Edouard Vuillard, Théodore Duret, 1912, oil on cardboard on wood, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.70

Théodore Duret

Edouard Vuillard · 1912 · oil on cardboard on wood ·  Accession ID  1963.10.70

Shown from the waist up, a woman with pale, peachy skin reads a book with one elbow propped on a grassy bank in this horizontal painting. The woman’s body is angled to our right, and she looks down at a pale green-covered book held in her right hand, which is in the lower left corner of the composition. The woman has dark brows over hooded eyes, and her dark brown hair falls loosely behind her shoulders. She has a round face, straight nose, and pale lips. She touches her hair with her left hand, to our right, with that pinky delicately crooked. One strap of a sleeveless, pearl-white chemise falls off the shoulder of that arm, and the dress nestles around her belly, revealing much of the other breast. Leafy trees and gray rocks are loosely painted behind her. The artist signed the painting in the lower right corner, “G. Courbet.”
Gustave Courbet, A Young Woman Reading, c. 1866/1868, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.114

A Young Woman Reading

Gustave Courbet · c. 1866/1868 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1963.10.114

A balding man with peach-colored skin and a drooping white mustache is surrounded by flowers floating in a blue sky with apricot-colored clouds in this vertical painting. He is shown from the waist up facing us at the bottom center. He seems to wear a midnight blue tunic over a white shirt, but his clothing is loosely painted. He looks down to our right, and his head is surrounded by an area of brownish gold to create a halo-like effect. Upon closer inspection, the peach clouds turn out to be areas of bare canvas. A sunflower, orange flowers, and a cluster of white and red flowers float in the space around the man. Some areas are thinly painted, and strokes are visible throughout.
Odilon Redon, Evocation of Roussel, c. 1912, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.203

Evocation of Roussel

Odilon Redon · c. 1912 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1963.10.203

Shown from about the knees up, a young woman sits in a chair angled to our right but she turns her face to look at us in this loosely painted, vertical portrait. Her chair has a rounded back and arms made from what looks like bent, woody vines, and the background is a solid field of pale aqua. Her dark hair is parted in the middle and tied at the nape of her neck with a red ribbon. Dark eyebrows curve over brown eyes, and she has a rounded nose, and her petal-pink lips are slightly parted. Her pale peach skin is tinged with green on her face and hands. Her right arm, on our left, rests along the arm of the chair. In her other hand, which rests in her lap, she holds a sprig of blooming oleander, with light pink flowers and green leaves. The bodice of her high-necked dress is striped with brick red and royal blue, and is lined with a row of round gold buttons down the front. The sleeves come down to her forearms and the cuffs and collar at her neck are white. Her full skirt is royal blue with pumpkin-orange dots. The brushwork is loose throughout and individual brushstrokes are visible, especially in the stripes of her bodice and the patchy peach tones that make up her skin.
Vincent van Gogh, La Mousmé, 1888, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.151

La Mousmé

Vincent van Gogh · 1888 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1963.10.151

This painting depicts a partially nude woman from the waist up. She is seated, facing us, wearing a bright blue headscarf that conceals her hair. There is a small black cross on her forehead. The woman has pale skin, dark eyes, and a neutral expression, and she wears with a necklace of round yellow ornaments. Her chest is bare, but a green fabric is wrapped around her waist. Her hands are clasped in her lap. The chair she sits on has yellow and olive-green stripes, and the wall behind her is tan, with red, leaf-patterned drapery on the right side.
Henri Matisse, Odalisque, Half-Length--The Tattoo, 1923, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.40

Odalisque, Half-Length--The Tattoo

Henri Matisse · 1923 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1963.10.40

This painting shows a woman sitting upright in a yellow-and-tan reclining chair, her body turned to the right, her face turned toward us. Her skin is pale, with shades of pale yellow and light pink, and shadows in a pale green shade. She has deep-set brown eyes, arched eyebrows, and a small pink mouth set in a neutral expression. Her curling hair is light purple and put in an updo. She is wearing a white and lilac polka-dot blouse with puffy sleeves, complemented by a long skirt with stripes of black, gray, and green. In her lap, she holds a small black, tan, and light-green dog, cradling it gently with both hands. The background features a grassy area enclosed by a wooden fence painted with lines of green, teal, and dark red, with a large, slightly bent tree trunk visible to the left. The sky above has a cloudy appearance made by crisscrossing lines of white, purple, pink, and green. The brushstrokes in the painting are thick and visible, especially those in the background. In some places, like the fence, the tree trunk, and the back of the chair, the light brown surface under the paint is visible.
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Lady with a Dog, 1891, oil on cardboard, Gift of the W. Averell Harriman Foundation in memory of Marie N. Harriman, 1972.9.22

Lady with a Dog

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec · 1891 · oil on cardboard ·  Accession ID  1972.9.22

This painting portrays a woman seen from the upper thighs up. Her body is slightly turned to the right with her head facing the left, and her left arm is extending outward, holding an indistinct pale shape. She has pale skin and brown hair tied behind her head. Her facial features are captured loosely, with round cheeks and red lips turned up at the corners. She is nude, and her body is painted in textured, fluid brushstrokes. The background is a mix of red, green, brown, yellow, and tan, painted with visible brushstrokes, giving the painting a sense of movement.
Auguste Renoir, Nude, c. 1895, oil on canvas, Gift of Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer, 1967.13.1

Nude

Auguste Renoir · c. 1895 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1967.13.1

A small, long brown dog is partly hidden by a bowl of red cherries perched on the right edge of a table in this loosely painted, horizontal scene. In the light-filled interior, the table fills the lower left half of the composition. It is draped with a sand-colored cloth decorated with a diagonal band of rose-pink strokes that ends near the lower right. In the center of the table, a tall glass pitcher half filled with water rests in a shallow burgundy-red bowl. Next to the pitcher, to our right, one bowl piled with cherries sits in front of clusters of green grapes in another bowl. Beyond the table, a wooden piece of furniture with two open shelves fills the upper left of the composition. The dog stands on the right side facing our left in profile. It is chocolate brown with a short tail and stubby little legs, and its face is hidden by the cherries. The walls and floors of the room are painted in swipes of teal, peach, tan, blues, and grays. The artist has signed the upper center right in red, “Bonnard.”
Pierre Bonnard, Still Life with Dog, c. 1912, oil on canvas, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 2014.18.1

Still Life with Dog

Pierre Bonnard · c. 1912 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  2014.18.1

Four young women with olive-green-colored skin shaded with cool blue stand or sit in a vividly colored landscape surrounded by trees in this horizontal painting. A slender, spruce-blue tree divides the picture just to our left of center. The ground around the tree spans the width of the composition and is carpeted in coral orange, carnation pink, and lavender purple with a handful of emerald-green saplings and tufts of grass. A pair of young women are to each side of the central tree, and a body of water extends across the composition just beyond this bit of land. To our left, the two women’s bodies face away, and they look back over their left shoulders at us. The girl on the left has black hair and wears a honey-orange and pale blue fabric wrapped around her waist. The girl next to her has copper-red hair with a pink cloth wrapped around her chest. They stand by or in the water so are shown from the knees up. The water there is made up of swirling pools of flame red and golden yellow bordered by lilac purple and peacock blue. On the other side of the tree, a young woman with white flowers in her brown hair sits on the ground, also with her back to us. The fourth faces us along the right edge of the canvas. She has black hair and stands next to and touches a thicker tree trunk with one hand. These two women are nude. The water beyond them is painted with patches of rose pink, lemon yellow, and ice blue. Areas mottled with teal, honeydew, and bottle green suggest shrubs and trees lining the far side of the water. Closer inspection reveals two ghostly, pale blue dogs lying on the ground near the lower right corner. The artist signed and dated in lower right, “P Gauguin 97.”
Paul Gauguin, The Bathers, 1897, oil on canvas, Gift of Sam A. Lewisohn, 1951.5.1

The Bathers

Paul Gauguin · 1897 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1951.5.1

Bibliography

1930

  • Bernard, Tristan. "Jos Hessel," La Renaissance 13 (January 1930):2-5.