William Buchanan

British, 1777 - 1846

Explore Selected Works

An armored man riding a white horse cuts his scarlet-red cloak in half using his sword in this loosely painted, vertical panel. The horse walks angled to our left, and a kneeling, bare chested person to the right holds both hands up and grips the other end of the cloak. A woman, a bearded, bald man, child, and baby are clustered behind the kneeling man. The baby sleeps in the woman’s arms, but she and the other child look up at the man on horseback, Saint Martin. The end of a staff or crutch and a shallow wooden bowl are by the kneeling person’s feet. Saint Martin’s silver armor gleams with gold decoration. He and all the others have pale, peach-toned skin. Saint Martin has chin-length, curly brown hair and wears a red cap with a white feather. Two more people on horseback are behind Saint Martin, and the trio rides under an arch twined with some brown vines. A church is visible in the distance through the arch.
Jan Boeckhorst, Saint Martin Dividing His Cloak, c. 1640/1645, oil on panel, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection, 1970.17.107

Saint Martin Dividing His Cloak

Jan Boeckhorst · c. 1640/1645 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  1970.17.107

Shown from the knees up, a light-skinned man wearing a loose, ink-black garment with a white collar leans back in a wooden chair in this vertical portrait painting. His body faces our left almost in profile, but he turns his head to look at us from the corners of his light hazel-brown eyes, the eyebrow closer to us slightly cocked. Crow’s feet line the corners of his hooded eyes. He is lit from our right so the side of his face to our left is in shadow. His slightly hollow cheeks are lined between his nose and mouth with wrinkles. His silvery-gray beard is trimmed close to his angled jawline and pointed chin. His gray hair is closely cropped hair under a velvety-black, three-pointed cap. The white collar is trimmed with stripes and a row of delicate dots along the edge. The man leans heavily against his left arm, closer to us, which is stretched along the arm of the chair to nearly span the width of the painting. That hand curls around the terminal of the chair, which is carved with a stylized flower in a disk. He wears a gold ring with a dark blue stone on the pinky of that hand. He marks the spot in a closed book with his other hand, and rests the book in the crook of the elbow draped along the arm of the chair. The book he holds has a sand-brown cover, and is about the size of a thick paperback novel. The crimson-red lining along the back of the chair, to our right, and the cushion on which the man sits is trimmed with rows of fringe of the same color. The background behind the man is deep, sable brown in the corners and lightens to tan around the man’s head.
Giovanni Battista Moroni, "Titian's Schoolmaster", c. 1575, oil on canvas, Widener Collection, 1942.9.45

"Titian's Schoolmaster"

Giovanni Battista Moroni · c. 1575 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1942.9.45

We look across a stream and through a loose screen of shadowy trees at a sunlit farm under a powder-blue sky with towering, puffy clouds in this vertical landscape painting. The ground and stream closest to us are painted in tones of olive green, sepia and earth brown, black, and slate gray. Nearly lost in shadow, a group of six people gathers at the water’s edge in the lower left. Small in scale within the composition, they wear brick-red, gray, or caramel-brown garments. Beyond them, a low picket fence winds through and between a loose band of shadowy trees, which are painted with gnarled, dark gray trunks and camel-brown, sage, and pine-green leaves. The trees to our left are closer and taller, while those to our right are a little farther away. The sun pours from the upper left into the field beyond. The farm buildings there have tan walls and sloping, peach-colored roofs. A few animals and people, smaller than the group in front, stand among the buildings, and more cottages can be glimpsed through a stand of trees on our right. The horizon line comes about a third of the way up the composition, and a church and steeple are silhouetted against the sky in the deep distance. A few birds fly in front of gray and white clouds that rise from the right side and spread across the top of the canvas.
Meindert Hobbema, A Farm in the Sunlight, 1668, oil on canvas, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1937.1.60

A Farm in the Sunlight

Meindert Hobbema · 1668 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1937.1.60

Shown from the knees up, a pale-skinned, bearded man dressed in black gazes at us in this vertical portrait painting. His body is angled to our left, and he looks at us from the corners of his hazel eyes under thick brows. He has close-cut, dark brown hair, a short nose, a trimmed beard, and a bushy moustache over pale pink lips, which are closed. He wears a voluminous velvet-black cloak trimmed with sable-brown fur, and his far arm rests on a stone ledge under a window. The face of the ledge is carved in relief with leaves. The man’s other arm hangs by his side, and he holds a brown glove in that hand. A celery-green drapery behind him fills the right half of the background. A short span of wall leads to a window to the left, through which a deep landscape is painted in tones of tan, gold, and bronze brown. Hills, a fence, stairs, what might be aqueducts, and a castle-like complex are nestled against tall hills under a white sky shaded with light tan clouds.
Jacopo Tintoretto, Maarten de Vos, Portrait of a Man with a Landscape View, 1552/1556, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1943.7.10

Portrait of a Man with a Landscape View

Jacopo Tintoretto, Maarten de Vos · 1552/1556 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1943.7.10