Provenance

Gimbel Brothers

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A smoking pipe, piccolo, books, sheet music, an oil-burning lamp, a white and blue pitcher, and a few matches are arranged on a wooden tabletop against a dark background in this vertical still life painting. The black piccolo has a white mouthpiece and is propped on some books at the center of the composition. The piccolo rests on the spine of a paper-bound book, which in turn leans on a volume bound in brown leather tooled with green, red, and gold bands. Under the book, a baby-blue page sits on some sheet music that drapes over the front of the table toward us. The blue cover bears the letters, “RICOLETT” and the sheet music below is labeled, “HELAS QUELLE DOULEUR CANTIQUE.” The edges of the paper are dogeared, tattered, and stained. The short smoking pipe has a rounded brown and ivory bowl, possibly carved from wood, and it rests upside-down on the sheet music. To our left and sitting on the brown book, a white pitcher with a tall neck and handle is painted with a landscape scene in blue on its rounded body over a flaring foot. Two more books are propped behind the brown volume so the dyed edges of the pages, one red and one green, face us. In front of those, one used and two unused matches sit on the tabletop. A white feather writing quill sits in a tapered, ivory-colored inkwell at the front right corner on a stained sage-green cloth that covers the right half of the table. Behind the inkwell and piccolo, two more books lean against a tall, silvery metal lamp, its wicks charred near the burners that extend off the reservoir. One book with a parchment-white cover has been placed upside down but the text “SHAKESPEARE” and “1605” are legible. The spine of a taller, pecan-brown book behind it reads “DANTE.” The background is mottled with shades of dark brown and terracotta red. The artist signed and dated this work with red paint in the lower left corner: “WMHARNETT 1888.”
William Michael Harnett, My Gems, 1888, oil on wood, Gift of the Avalon Foundation, 1957.5.1

My Gems

William Michael Harnett · 1888 · oil on wood ·  Accession ID  1957.5.1

A woman sits facing our right in profile, looking through downcast eyes at a lute she holds upright in her lap in this vertical painting. She has smooth, pale skin, and her tawny-brown hair is pulled gathered at the back of her neck. She holds her head high, so she looks down through lowered eyes toward her lap. Her full, pale-pink lips are slightly parted. Her long gown swirls with tones of pine, moss, and sage green with a few strokes of earth brown. Her garment, especially around the neckline, is loosely painted so it is difficult to tell if her decolletage is bare or is covered by a sheer fabric. The sleeve we see is slashed along the elbow so fabric in lighter green shows through. Her dress drapes over her feet, which are cropped by the bottom right corner of the composition. The woman is brightly lit from the upper center, but the bench on which she sits blends into the nearly black background. She braces the neck of the lute where it meets the body with long, delicate fingers, so the instrument stands in her lap with the flat soundboard facing her. The neck tips slightly away from her body, and she rests her right hand, closer to us, on the soundboard with her fingers crooked. The lute is a mahogany brown and has radiating lines that extend from the side closest to us up along the back of the body. The pegboard at the top of the neck is barely cropped by the right edge of the composition. The lute is finely detailed, which contrasts with the loose brushwork of the woman’s dress. The artist signed and dated the painting in the lower left corner, “TW Dewing 86.”
Thomas Wilmer Dewing, Lady with a Lute, 1886, oil on wood, Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Walter Timme, 1978.60.1

Lady with a Lute

Thomas Wilmer Dewing · 1886 · oil on wood ·  Accession ID  1978.60.1