Provenance

Édouard Napoléon César Edmond Mortier, duc de Trévise

Trévise, Édouard Mortier, 5th Duke of
Trévise, Édouard, Baron Mortier de

French, 1883 - 1946

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This painting is a portrait of a man. His body is turned towards the right, but he looks directly at us. He has fair skin and dark brown hair with two curling pieces falling onto his forehead. He has well-defined eyebrows, brown eyes, a straight nose, a cleft chin, and light red lips in a neutral expression. He is wearing a dark coat with a high collar that is edged in a yellow and green pattern. Under the coat, he wears a white cravat tied in a voluminous knot. The background is a plain brown color.
Pierre Paul Prud'hon, David Johnston, 1808, oil on canvas, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1961.9.84

David Johnston

Pierre Paul Prud'hon · 1808 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1961.9.84

Three men on horseback wearing elaborate military uniforms in cream white, crimson red, and gold almost fill this vertical painting. Lit dramatically from the upper left, the men all have peachy, tanned skin. Their red and white uniforms are trimmed liberally with gold. Each man wears a red sash across his chest, cream-white gloves that reach back to mid-forearm, and a tall hat topped with a single, stiff, white feather. At the center of the composition, the man closest to us rides a horse dappled with silver, steel gray, and black, which raises a front hoof as if in mid-stride. The horse and rider’s bodies are angled to our right, but the horse looks back to our left as the man looks directly at us with small brown eyes. His slender nose slopes to a brown handlebar moustache that curves over his pale peach mouth. He leans slightly back in the saddle, which is draped with a scarlet-red blanket with gold trim. The leg we see, to our left, is extended straight in the stirrup, and the man braces a brass trumpet adorned with gold tassels against that thigh. His helmet has a high, square, white crown that comes to points to each side and in front. The boxy shape is outlined in red and has the stiff, bushy feather at the top front and a red tassel hanging along one side. An arched brass plaque with a capital N is affixed to the front of the helmet over a narrow brim. Though held in place with a chin strap, the helmet is slightly askew. To our left and behind the central man, a white horse and rider face away from us. This rider’s upper body is turned back slightly to our right so we see him in profile as he holds a brass horn to his lips. To our right and set father back, the third rider and his gray horse are very loosely painted so features of his face and costume are not clear. All three stand on a ground painted with swipes of caramel brown, mustard yellow, and pine green. The background is slightly darker, in smoky tones of brown, gray, and black with flicks of red. A dark mass, perhaps a deep shadow, rises to the right, behind the third horseman.
Théodore Gericault, Mounted Trumpeters of Napoleon's Imperial Guard, 1813/1814, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Fund, 1972.25.1

Mounted Trumpeters of Napoleon's Imperial Guard

Théodore Gericault · 1813/1814 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1972.25.1

Bibliography

1924

  • Exposition d'oeuvres de Géricault: au profit de La Société "La Sauveguarde de l'Art Français". Paris, Hôtel Jean Charpentier, 24 April-16 May 1924.

1956

  • Morant, Count Georges de, ed. World Nobility and Peerage. 2nd ed. Vol. 87. London and Paris, 1955-1956: 178.