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Lee and Juliet Folger

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Water laps at a curving shoreline in front of a steep sandy dune carpeted in grass, shrubs, and trees in this horizontal landscape painting. The dune takes up the lower right quadrant of the composition. A few broken tree trunks are overgrown with vines and plants across the top and down the sloping side of the dune facing us. A red brick wall cuts through the vegetation up the side of the dune and disappears into the shrubbery at the top. The twisting branches and canopies of three large trees reach into the upper right quadrant of the composition. The vegetation stops abruptly along the sheer edge of the dune where it faces the water. The land curves like a backward capital letter C so it almost reaches the left edge of the painting along the horizon, which comes a quarter of the way up the composition. A cow and three more animals, perhaps sheep or more cows, graze or lie on a grassy mound in the distance, and sailboats line the horizon in the deep distance. White ripples swirl in the steel-blue water. The artist signed and dated the lower center, “J Ruisdael . 1648.”
Jacob van Ruisdael, Dunes by the Sea, 1648, oil on panel, The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund, 2017.55.1

Dunes by the Sea

Jacob van Ruisdael · 1648 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  2017.55.1

Sixteen men, women, and children sit on or walk among seven horses against a landscape with tall, narrow trees, buildings, and distant mountains under a vivid blue sky in this horizontal painting. In the lower left corner, a man and woman approach the group, which are arrayed across a dirt ground. The man carries a large basket with chickens over one arm and doffs his hat with his other hand. Just behind him, the woman carries a flat-bottomed, wide basket of fruit and vegetables balanced on her head. Some of the men in the main group wear wide-brimmed, feathered hats, long coats in shades of peanut brown, black, and scarlet red, and knee-length pants over stockings. The two other women wear gold-trimmed dresses in shimmering orchid pink or sapphire blue. Several of the men and women ride or prepare to ride horses, which range in shades of brown, gray, white, and black. Nine dogs with brown, white, or black fur frolic, stand, or lie among the horses. One boy pours from a jug into a stemmed glass with a flaring bowl, held by a man holding a curling hunting horn. Just beyond this pair, another man, wearing black and sitting on a horse, blows into a curving horn held up in one hand, while his other hand is planted on his hip. All the people have pale pink skin except for two men. One, to our right, is possibly of short stature and he has an olive complexion. He wears a crimson-red jacket and holds a falcon on one gloved hand. The second man has brown skin and holds the reins of a gray horse near the right edge of the composition. Near the lower right corner of the painting, a potted miniature orange tree sits on a ledge next to a peacock who perches nearby. A second peacock’s head peers out from behind the ledge. A fountain just behind the group at the center has water pouring from a stylized fish’s mouth. A sculpted woman riding the fish holds up a long object while water spouts in thin streams from her breasts. Another statue stands between two tall, spear-like trees to our left. To our right, about two dozen people look onto the scene below from a rooftop terrace on a section of the building rising up along the right edge of the painting. There, a band of musicians plays while guests dine at a small table with a peacock-shaped pie, as two more people bring out trays of food. On the front face of that structure, a man and woman talk on a balcony, as a monkey eating an orange perches on the banister. A grassy lawn or garden stretches back to a large manor house, which is hazy in the distance to our right. The horizon comes about a quarter of the way up this composition, and the sky above has bright white and flint-gray clouds against a brilliant blue sky. The overlapping letters “DG” are inscribed on the rump of a horse to our left, near the fountain. Painted in red in the lower right corner, the letters “PHILS” are entwined in a monogram next to a “W.”
Philips Wouwerman, The Departure for the Hunt, c. 1665/1668, oil on panel, The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund, in honor of Earl A. Powell III, Director of the National Gallery of Art (1992-2019), 2019.2.1

The Departure for the Hunt

Philips Wouwerman · c. 1665/1668 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  2019.2.1

Three tall sailing ships, each with three masts and full sails, float in calm, arctic waters, surrounded by fragments of icebergs and ice floes amid a smattering of arctic animals in this horizontal landscape painting. The horizon line comes about a quarter of the way up the composition so the sails and rigging of the ships are shown against the sky. The clouds have ivory tops and lavender-purple undersides, and they curve in a C-shaped bank to cover most of the left half of the painting and to span the horizon. The three ships closest to us are spaced evenly across the composition, with the left-most the closest, and therefore the largest. The ship to our right is set a bit farther back, and the center ship is the farthest away. A rowboat holding several men has pulled alongside the boat to our left, and more men haul massive slabs of whale blubber up the side of the ship. Others walk on an ice floe nearby. Close inspection reveals more rowboats around and beyond these ships, and several more ships fading into the hazy distance along the horizon. Jagged edged chunks of icebergs as tall as the ships float around them. Closer to us, a trio of seals sits on an ice floe near the lower center of the composition, and a polar bear stands nose to nose with a cub to our right. Two narwhal whales with long tusks break the surface of the water between us and the ships, as does a whale’s tail near the boat to our right. Two walruses with long tusks sit on a floe near the center ship. A couple dozen birds, many white with black wing tips, fly low over the surface of the water across the painting.
John Ward of Hull, The Northern Whale Fishery: The "Swan" and "Isabella", c. 1840, oil on canvas, The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund, 2007.114.1

The Northern Whale Fishery: The "Swan" and "Isabella"

John Ward of Hull · c. 1840 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  2007.114.1

A tightly packed crowd of about two dozen men and women surges out of a fortified stone ruin in this horizontal painting. The building fills the right half of the composition and extends off the top edge. Shrubs and vegetation grow on fragments of architecture that loom behind the crowd. Near the front of the crowd, a man wearing a lilac-purple robe kneels, bracing the crossbeam of a wooden cross over one shoulder. He wears a ring of thorns on his head, and he looks back over his shoulder so his face turns to us. His fingers are interlaced over the crossbeam, which is tied with rope. A muscled, bare-chested man wearing ruby-red, knee-length britches and an ax tied around his waist pulls the rope. A woman wearing a blue dress, yellow robe, and white veil holds out a piece of white fabric to our right. Just beyond the cross, two men walk with their hands tied behind their back, their heads down. They are nude except for gray cloths tied across their hips. To our right in the crowd, a woman wearing a white head covering and rose-pink dress under a voluminous, azure-blue robe stands with her fingers interlaced. A second woman, in slate blue, stands next to her, looking at and pointing to her. The other men in the crowd wear turbans, feathered caps, or are bareheaded. Some wear tunics and some are bare chested. Two men on horseback bring up the rear of the crowd, under the tall rectangular doorway leading into the building. A man wearing armor rides a rearing, brown and white dappled horse in front of the crowd, to our left. Four men walk farther along the path where it disappears behind another fragment of a building, also overgrown with plants. More people, painted ghostly white, walk along the path where it curves into the deep distance between rolling hills. A grove with bushes, palm trees, and trees with rounded canopies grows in the distance to our right. White and flint-gray clouds roll across the pale blue sky above.
Cornelis van Poelenburch, Christ Carrying the Cross, early 1620s, oil on copper, The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund, 2007.49.1

Christ Carrying the Cross

Cornelis van Poelenburch · early 1620s · oil on copper ·  Accession ID  2007.49.1

A basket overflowing with grapes and surrounded by dead birds and more fruit sits on a long table covered in a scarlet-red cloth in this horizontal still life painting. In the basket at the center of the painting, luminous green, blue-black, red, and purple grapes are piled up in a rough pyramid that overflows the sides. Long stems with broad sage and celery-green leaves edged with brown jut up above and to the side of the bunches of grapes, nearly touching the top edge of the painting. Just in front of the basket to our left, a bowl overflowing with a bunch of purple grapes is tipped toward us. The inside of the bowl is painted with cobalt-blue, geometric, vegetal designs against a white background. Behind it, at the far left, a tall, bronze, footed serving dish stacked high with pale green and black-skinned figs is cut off by the left edge of the composition. In front of and to the right of the central basket, the bodies of about two dozen small and medium-sized birds fill the right half of the tabletop. About ten small birds are arranged along a stick between a pair of dead birds to our left and a pile of several larger birds to our right. The birds’ feathers and bodies are painted in shades of cream and parchment white, ink black, ruby red, tawny brown, and butter and golden yellow. The fruit and birds are lit from the upper left, and the backround is earth brown.
Frans Snyders, Still Life with Grapes and Game, c. 1630, oil on panel, Gift of The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund in Honor of the Twentieth Anniversary of the Circle of the National Gallery of Art, 2006.22.1

Still Life with Grapes and Game

Frans Snyders · c. 1630 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  2006.22.1

On a tabletop spread with an ivory-white cloth, plates, and white porcelain bowls containing sweets, fruit, olives, and a cooked fowl are arranged around the largest platter, which holds the head, wings, and tail of a peacock stuck into a tall, baked pie, in this horizontal still life painting. The front, left corner of the table is near the lower left corner of the painting, so the tabletop extends off the right side of the composition. The white tablecloth lies over a second cloth underneath, which is only visible along the right edge. The cloth underneath has a leafy, geometric pattern in burgundy red against a lighter, rose-red background. The peacock pie is set near the back of the table, to our right, so it fills the upper right quadrant of the composition. The bird holds a pink rose in its beak. In front of it, near the lower right corner of the painting, a white porcelain bowl painted with teal-green floral and geometric designs holds about ten pieces of pale yellow and blush-red fruit. A pewter plate next to it, to our left, holds dried fruit and baked, stick-like sweets, some covered with white sugar. A pile of salt sits atop a gold, square vessel between the sweets and the peacock pie. Another blue-patterned, white porcelain bowl filled with green olives sits near the back of the table next to a lidded, pewter pitcher with a long spout. Other pewter plates hold a baked fowl, like a small chicken, and, closest to us, a partially cut lemon with its peel curling off the plate. Nuts, more fruit, an ivory-handled knife, bread rolls, and flat biscuits sit on the white cloth among the plates. One glass with a wide stem covered in nubs and a flaring bowl sits near the back, left corner of the table, filled with a pale yellow liquid. An empty glass lies with the upper rim on another pewter plate, to our left. Also on the plate is a bunched up white napkin and a leather case for the knife. The background behind the still life is brown.
Pieter Claesz, Still Life with Peacock Pie, 1627, oil on panel, The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund , 2013.141.1

Still Life with Peacock Pie

Pieter Claesz · 1627 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  2013.141.1

A three-masted warship against a sky piled with clouds fills most of the right half of this vertical painting. The cream-white sails are bright in the sunlight, and tiny deckhands work along the horizontal yards and along the rigging. The flat stern faces us and is decorated with a rearing lion and unicorn on either side of a shield among gold molding. Eight hatches along the port side of the ship are lifted, and smoke shoots out of one of the cannons poking through the openings. Six men row a boat carrying seven more men to the left. A large flag fluttering from the stern has a red and white cross on a blue field. A single-masted sailboat with its red sail furled has pulled up to the stern of the warship, and three people work there. Another warship with sails partially raised floats in the hazy background to the left. The horizon comes about a quarter of the way up the composition, and clouds shaded with muted peach and lavender-tinted gray fill the sky along the horizon and break along the top third of the painting. Minuscule in scale, two white and black birds fly low to the water near the lower right corner of the painting. The artist signed and dated the painting as if he had inscribed a piece of driftwood near the birds: “W. V Velde In Londen 1673.”
Willem van de Velde the Younger, An English Warship Firing a Salute, 1673, oil on canvas, The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund, 2018.10.1

An English Warship Firing a Salute

Willem van de Velde the Younger · 1673 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  2018.10.1

A child and woman stand at the open door of an entryway with black and white marble floors, as the child drops a coin into the hat of a disheveled boy accompanied by a nursing mother across the threshold in this vertical painting. Beyond the entryway, a man and woman look on from a room with a landscape painting hanging over a tall mantle. All the people have pale skin. The child standing with the woman inside, near the door, looks at us with gray eyes. Blond ringlets frame a round face with full cheeks, a snub nose, and parted coral-red lips. The ringlets are tied with butter-yellow ribbons and the rest of the head is covered with a white cap. The child’s garment has a wide, flaring, flat collar, a tight-fitting bodice, and a flaring, floor-length skirt. Pale plum-purple, puffy sleeves are tied with pale yellow and azure-blue ribbons, and a cape of the same fabric lined with pale grass-green falls from the shoulders. A medallion hangs from a thick gold chain looped over the child’s right shoulder, to our left, across to the opposite hip. The child touches the hand of the woman standing behind with one hand, to our right, and drops a silver coin into the proffered hat with the other. The woman’s body faces us but she turns her oval-shaped face to look down at the boy holding out his hat. She wears a scarlet-red, long-sleeved bodice with a wide, white collar over her chest. A taupe-brown apron covers her dark skirt and her bonnet is long on the sides, draping to brush her shoulders. She rests her right hand, to our left, on her stomach and touches the fingertips of the child in front of her with the other. Near the lower right corner of the painting, a small white dog with ginger-brown spots stands on the black and white marble floor, looking up toward the exchange. Light pours into the entryway through the open door and a transom window above it. The walls are light gray and the doorways are surrounded with darker gray molding. A painting of a landscape hangs above the doorway leading to the room beyond. The man and woman there look at us from in front of a mantle that is taller than the woman who stands next to the man, who is seated. The woman’s hair is pulled back under a cap, and she wears a silver-gray dress lined with a wide band of white fur. She holds one hand to her waist and gestures toward the foyer with the other. The man wears a black suit with a wide, flat collar. The floor in this room is a checkerboard pattern of white and brick-red squares, and sky-blue panels with gilded leafy designs cover part of the walls. A carved stone cherub like a small, chubby child, stands on the mantle to our left, next to the landscape painting there. Back in the entryway, across the threshold, the boy steps with one foot onto the floor of the foyer as he holds out his frayed, brimmed hat. He has short-cropped blond hair and wears a mustard-yellow shirt with tattered brown pants. The nursing woman stands next to the door, out of sight of the people inside, holding a baby to one round breast. The boy and woman’s faces, necks, and hands are noticeably tanned, almost orange. Two small children huddle, almost out of sight, in the narrow space between the boy and the left edge of the painting. They look down onto a few light tan disks, perhaps coins, on the step in front of them. In the distance beyond the family are a few trees and buildings beneath a vibrant blue sky with puffy white clouds. The artist signed and dated the painting in the lower right corner, “J. Ochtervelt f. 1663.”
Jacob Ochtervelt, A Nurse and a Child in an Elegant Foyer, 1663, oil on canvas, The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund, 2015.68.1

A Nurse and a Child in an Elegant Foyer

Jacob Ochtervelt · 1663 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  2015.68.1

A glass holding a loose bouquet of flowers set within an oval is surrounded by eight insects against an off-white surface in this vertical still life painting. It is impossible to tell whether the oval is an opening piercing the white surface or if the still life is an oval-shaped painting sitting on top of the white surface. The glass holding the flowers has straight, slightly flaring sides with a ring of textured knubs around the bottom third. Flowers in the glass include a white lily of the valley, yellow and purple violet, blue grape hyacinth, yellow narcissus, red poppy, upside-down cup-shaped pink snake’s head fritillary, and stems of greenery. The bouquet is lit from the left, and a ray of light focused by the glass falls across the back edge of the wooden ledge on which the glass sits. Two drops of water bead on the ledge, and the artist signed the front face of the ledge, “CLARA P.” The background behind the flowers within the oval is black. The bugs on the white surface are much larger in scale, painted precisely so anatomical details can be made out. Across the top are a dragonfly with a green body, a house fly with red eyes, and a dragonfly with a red body. A fuzzy caterpillar is to the left of the oval and a hornet is to the right. Across the bottom are a snail, a ladybug, and a beetle with a black body and red wings and legs.
Clara Peeters, Still Life with Flowers Surrounded by Insects and a Snail, c. 1610, oil on copper, The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund, 2018.144.1

Still Life with Flowers Surrounded by Insects and a Snail

Clara Peeters · c. 1610 · oil on copper ·  Accession ID  2018.144.1

A large cluster of green grapes hangs prominently in the upper center of this painting, accompanied by an intertwined vine and a single olive-green leaf. One of the grapes at the center of the bunch is a golden color, while the others are light green. Below the grapes, two round red fruits rest on the surface of a table, one with an opening that reveals a light orange interior. A delicate blue butterfly flutters to the left of the grapes, and a small red ladybug sits at the edge of the table at the bottom of the painting. The table is light brown, and the background behind the fruit and bugs is black.
Adriaen Coorte, Still Life with a Hanging Bunch of Grapes, Two Medlars, and a Butterfly, 1687, oil on canvas, The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund, 2020.16.1

Still Life with a Hanging Bunch of Grapes, Two Medlars, and a Butterfly

Adriaen Coorte · 1687 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  2020.16.1