Provenance

Galerie Charles Brunner

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The limp, dead bodies of a swan, rabbit, and three birds along with a live bird and a small dog are arranged on and near a low stone step in the bottom left corner of this horizontal painting. To our left and close to us, the white swan lies on its back on the step with its wings partly extended. Its long neck drapes toward us over the rabbit’s body, the bird’s head turned to our left. The rabbit has tawny-brown fur and lies stretched out on its side, its belly facing away from us. Tucked in the lower left corner of the painting, a fowl has a round body with cream-white and chestnut-brown feathers. The beaks of two more dead birds peek out from the shadows beyond the rabbit’s body. Behind the dead animals and taking up the left third of the painting, the square base of a fawn-brown stone column nearly reaches the top edge of the canvas. The front face is carved with a relief showing a woman and man huddled together as they look down in front of them, seemingly toward the swan. A yellow flower with narrow, tapered petals hangs over the upper left corner of the base and lavender-purple flowers, perhaps roses, peek around the base from our right. To our right of the dead animals, a bird with black, smoke-gray, and white feathers stands facing away from us with its wings flared back. Its emerald-green and gold head gleams in the stark light illuminating the scene from the lower left. It turns its head toward a small dog in the lower right corner. The dog has white and pale, honey-brown fur, a round face, blunt nose, and sable-brown floppy ears. The dog’s back half is cut off by the edge of the painting, and it seems to lean back as it looks toward the bird. A grapevine with broad, curling leaves winds into the painting behind and above the dog, ending with scrolling tendrils at the center of the composition. The leaves are fern green, some fading to a pale sage green or tan, and edged in brown. One leaf over the dog’s head is crimson red and tan, and a glistening cluster of green grapes lies on the ground near the dog’s front paws, to our left. Beyond the live bird and dog, a deep landscape opens up with statues lining a stepped walkway that leads to a rectangular reflecting pool. Several black and white birds the size of ducks stand in the shadowed background near the pool and more birds fly overhead. Backlit by the amber-gold sunset, tall trees with thin black trunks and caramel-brown leaves line the path leading to a tall narrow structure at the water’s edge. The golden sunset fades to a pale blue sky with drifting clouds over low mountains in the deep distance.
Jan Weenix, Still Life with Goose and Game before a Country Estate, c. 1685, oil on canvas, Patrons' Permanent Fund, 2004.39.1

Still Life with Goose and Game before a Country Estate

Jan Weenix · c. 1685 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  2004.39.1

A pale-skinned man sitting hunched over as he draws on a tablet and a bull lying at his feet fill this vertical painting. The man faces our right in profile, and he looks down at the book. He has a lined forehead, a bumped nose, and wrinkles around his nose. He has lanky, chin-length hair and a curly, unruly beard. He sits with one leg pulled up so he can partially brace the tablet on that knee. He holds the inkwell and clutches the top of the tablet with one hand and draws using a feather quill with the other. His other leg stretches down, and the ball of the bare foot is perched against the edge of the low platform on which the man sits. His garment has a white collar over a tunic that shimmers from plum purple to moss green. Extending from under the tunic’s short sleeves are long sky blue and pale laurel green sleeves. A golden yellow robe drapes over one shoulder and wraps around his lap. The gray bull, which is shown in about half the scale of the man, sits with one front leg tucked under his body as he looks over to our right. The floor is pale mauve purple, and the background is dark green, almost black. A glimpse of a work of art showing a woman holding a baby is visible near the top left corner of the painting.
Giorgio Vasari, Saint Luke, 1570-1571, oil on panel, Gift of Damon Mezzacappa in Loving Memory of Elizabeth Mezzacappa, 2012.79.2

Saint Luke

Giorgio Vasari · 1570-1571 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  2012.79.2

A pale-skinned, muscular man sitting and reading a book as a lion rests at his feet fills this vertical painting. The man’s knees are angled slightly to our right but his torso twists back to the left. His head follows that direction so he’s almost in profile as he looks at the book, which he holds up to our left. His brows are deeply furrowed, and he has a bumped, blade-like nose. He has short, copper-red hair and a squared beard. He wears a tunic and knee-lengths pants that shimmer in shades of topaz blue and pearly white under a carnation-pink cloak that drapes from his shoulders and across his thighs. A round, gold pin holds the cloth in place on his left shoulder, to our right. His lower legs and feet are bare. He rests the heel of one foot on a rounded plinth and lifts the toes so they come at us. The other knee bends deeply and the toes of that foot perch lightly behind the first leg. The man leans to our right to look at the open book, which he holds in both arms to the left. Visible text on the far page reads, “ANGELVS DESCENDIT EVO.” He braces a black inkpot and spindly white feather quill in one hand and holds a pair of pince-nez glasses with the other. The lion is small in comparison to the man and has a curly mane and translucent gray wings. The background is dark except a strip off-white floor along the bottom edge.
Giorgio Vasari, Saint Mark, 1570-1571, oil on panel, Gift of Damon Mezzacappa in Loving Memory of Elizabeth Mezzacappa, 2012.79.1

Saint Mark

Giorgio Vasari · 1570-1571 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  2012.79.1