Provenance

Leonard Koetser Gallery

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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

Dozens of multicolored birds of various sizes are arranged around a stout tree in this horizontal landscape painting. At least two dozen species of birds perch along the branches and crowd around the base. For example, there are birds with gold bodies, cobalt-blue wings, and hooked beaks in the upper left-hand branches. In the branches to the right a tomato-red bird with long, blue tail feathers is surrounded by small light brown and gray birds. An owl, peacock, ostrich, and turkey painted in muted browns and blues gather with other green, blue, red, and dark gray birds on the left side of the tree to look at an open book resting against the trunk. The bank with the birds is separated from a second grove of trees by the waterway, which splits near the lower right corner of the painting and winds into the distance to both the left and right. The grove across from us has slender green trees with feathery leaves among a bank of tall reeds. In the river in the lower right corner, ducks, swans, and a tall heron stand and float among lily pads. A few birds take flight while one comes in for a landing in the near distance, to our right. The sky above this area is slate blue. Ghostly touches of white along the river to our left suggest tall birds standing in the water. Beyond them, a hazy, peanut-brown field with tall trees marches into the distance under an overcast sky.
Anonymous Artist, Concert of Birds, 1660/1670, oil on copper, Gift of John Dimick, 1983.19.4

Concert of Birds

Anonymous Artist · 1660/1670 · oil on copper ·  Accession ID  1983.19.4

A tall goblet made with a spiraling nautilus shell on a gold and silver stem, a blue and white lidded, porcelain bowl, an orange, a cut lemon, and a bunched up, woven rug are gathered on a tabletop in front of a black background in this vertical still life painting. Light falling on the objects from our left contrasts sharply with the deep shadow beyond, which makes some details difficult to make out. The objects might be gathered on a silver tray. At the center of the composition, the flagon is made with a shimmering, ivory-colored nautilus shell with its wide opening facing up. The stem is made of gold bands coiling around a silver figurine, which is nearly lost in shadow. To our right, a white porcelain bowl has a rounded bottom and tall sides. It is painted with blue designs around a raised relief showing two people in crimson-red and harvest-gold garments. A utensil sits in the bowl to our right, and the lid, which has a finial in the shape of an animal, rests angled upward, partially in the bowl and partially on the stem of that utensil. A translucent, cylindrical knife handle protrudes toward us, angled to our right, in front of the bowl. A rug with a geometric pattern of rust red, tan, and pine green is bunched next to the bowl, along the right side of the painting. To our left of the nautilus cup, an orange with a stem and green leaves sits next to a bright, glistening lemon at the foot of the cup. Between the two pieces of fruit, the vivid yellow lemon rind has been peeled into a long, curling strip that curves off the front edge of the table.
Anonymous Artist, Still Life with Nautilus Cup, 1665/1670, oil on canvas, Gift of Robert H. and Clarice Smith, 1974.109.1

Still Life with Nautilus Cup

Anonymous Artist · 1665/1670 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1974.109.1

Bibliography

1988

  • The Paintings of the David M. and Betty Koetser Foundation, Zurich, 1988

1992

  • Baumann, Felix A. "Händler, Sammler und Mäzen. Zum Tode von David Maurits Koetser." Neue Zürcher Zeitung 140 (19 June 1992):55