American Masterworks from the Corcoran, 1815-1940

February 6 – May 3, 2015
West Building, Main Floor, Northeast Galleries

Frederic Edwin Church, *Niagara*, 1857, National Gallery of Art, Corcoran Collection (Museum Purchase, Gallery Fund), 2014.79.10

Four men on horseback riding side by side hold revolvers up in the air in this freestanding bronze sculpture. All four wear gloves with long cuffs and wide-brimmed hats. Their eyes are delineated as slits to suggest they are closed or nearly so, and their mouths are wide open. Their right hands, to our left, are raised holding revolvers in the air, and they hold the reins of the horses with their other hands. Three of the men have bushy mustaches and one, second from our right, has a full, trimmed beard. Two have long, shoulder-length hair, which alternate with the other two who seem to have close-cropped hair. The horses all run with their legs at different angles, all with two legs off the ground except the leftmost horse, who has three feet midair in a long stride. The horses’ heads pull forward as the riders pull up. In this photograph the sculpture is angled away from us to our left, so we see the most of the rider and horse closest to us to our right. He wears wide chaps, and a booted foot is snug in the stirrup on the side we can see. The base beneath the horses’ feet is modeled coarsely to suggest earth. Light creates white highlights on the dark brown bronze, and some surfaces are a little rough, especially on the horses’ bodies. The artist inscribed the right side of the base, “Frederic Remington” and a nearby inscription reads, “Copyrighted by Frederic Remington 1902.”

Frederic Remington, Off the Range (Coming Through the Rye), model 1902, cast 1903, bronze with green patina, Corcoran Collection (Museum purchase), 2014.79.38

From a low vantage point, we look up a steep, rocky mountainside at a towering mountain peak in the distance in this nearly square landscape painting. Painted with tones of cobalt and topaz blue, caramel and clay brown, mauve pink, lavender purple, ivory, and cream white, the rocks and mountain nearly fill this composition against a deep, crystal-blue sky dotted with a few white puffy clouds. Water trickles along the rocky ground into a white waterfall near the lower left corner. Vibrant green moss grows on some of the smaller rocks that form a diagonal line down to the lower right corner. Larger boulders are painted with denim blue and harvest yellow beyond the smaller rocks. The rocky landscape slopes dramatically up into the distance, where it meets the sheer cliff face of a back-lit monolith that nearly touches the top edge of the canvas. Brushstrokes are visible throughout, especially along the center for the middle distance. Light pours over the scene from the left, but some of the middle ground is cast into shadow, perhaps by unseen ridges.

American Masterworks from the Corcoran, 1815-1940

John Singer Sargent, Simplon Pass, 1911, oil on canvas, Corcoran Collection (Bequest of James Parmelee), 2014.79.31

Four women and two children, all with pale skin, carry baskets as they walk along a beach under a brilliant blue sky in this horizontal painting. The scene is painted with visible dabs and blended strokes. The women all wear long-sleeved shirts, calf-length skirts and aprons, head coverings, and gray clogs. The group walks to our left, amid shallow pools that reflect the topaz-blue sky. At the front of the group, to our left, a young woman wears a white kerchief tied at the back of her neck, under her blond hair. She wears a navy-blue shirt and a gray skirt, and she carries a shallow, woven, straw basket against her left hip, closer to us. On her other side, a barefoot child walks beside her. The child wears a white, long-sleeved shirt tucked into tan-colored shorts and a wide-brimmed, golden yellow hat. He holds a basket at the small of his back. To our right, near the center of the composition, a pair of women walk with their heads tipped toward each other. The woman closer to us has bright, copper-blond hair under a white bonnet tied under her chin. A black shawl crosses over her white shirt, and black coverings are pulled up over the forearms of her white shirt. Her beige apron mostly obscures her crimson-red skirt. Wearing dark stockings, she is the only woman whose shins are not bare. The woman next to her, farther from us, wears a dark gray head covering and skirt, and a navy-blue shirt. The chin straps on the bonnets of both of these women flutter in the breeze. Behind that pair, to our right, and older woman also wears a black shawl and sleeve protectors over a white shirt. Her apron is aquamarine blue and she lifts it over a brown skirt. She has stopped to gaze down at the second child, standing next to her. Sunlight sets the child’s blond hair aglow as he reaches down to tug at the leg of his dark gray shorts. He wears a teal-blue, long-sleeved shirt and is also barefoot. Touches of white paint on the beach around the group makes the sand seem to shimmer. More people approach the beach from the upper right corner, where the dune leads back to a lighthouse. The structure is a hazy, slate-gray silhouette against the bright white clouds in the vivid blue sky above. The beach slopes down to our left into the distance, where sailboats and people are suggested with a few swipes of paint. The artist signed and dated the painting in the lower right corner, “John S. Sargent. Paris 1878.”

American Masterworks from the Corcoran, 1815-1940

John Singer Sargent, En route pour la pêche (Setting Out to Fish), 1878, oil on canvas, Corcoran Collection (Museum purchase, Gallery Fund; Frame: Gift of the Women's Committee of the Corcoran Gallery of Art), 2014.79.32

We look across a palm-tree lined river winding into the distance before a monumental, snow-covered mountain at the center of the composition in this horizontal landscape. The spit of land along the riverbank in the lower left corner is filled with lush vegetation, including waving ferns, vines, leafy trees, and palm trees. At the bottom center of the composition, along the shoreline, a boat with a pointed prow is occupied by three people wearing white pants. Two of the men are bare-chested and the third wears a red shirt. The boat is covered with a rounded, hut-like structure and tendrils of white paint, perhaps indicating smoke from a fire, waft up in front of the opening to the structure. The placid river widens beyond the boat and across from us, the distant shore is lined with white buildings with brown thatched roofs and a white church with two spires and a red tile roof. Trees around and beyond the buildings fill in the space before brown hills that eventually lead to the snowy peaks of the central mountain. The earthy moss and sage green and tawny brown of the vegetation and river closer to us fades to pale caramel and pinkish-tan in the hazy distance. A few birds fly across the pale blue sky to our left, and wisps of light gray clouds float in from our right. The artist signed and dated the work in the lower left corner: “Church 1854.”

American Masterworks from the Corcoran, 1815-1940

Frederic Edwin Church, Tamaca Palms, 1854, oil on canvas, Corcoran Collection (Gift of William Wilson Corcoran), 2014.79.11

We hover over the bottle-green surface of a river as it rushes toward a horseshoe-shaped waterfall that curves away from us in this horizontal landscape painting. The water is white and frothy right in front of us, where the shelf of the riverbed changes levels near the edge of the falls. Across from us, the water is also white where it falls over the edge. A thin, broken rainbow glints in the mist near the upper left corner of the painting and continues its arc farther down, between the falls. The horizon line is just over halfway up the composition. Plum-purple clouds sweep into the composition at the upper corners against a lavender-colored sky. Tiny trees and a few buildings line the shoreline to the left and right in the deep distance.

American Masterworks from the Corcoran, 1815-1940

Frederic Edwin Church, Niagara, 1857, oil on canvas, Corcoran Collection (Museum purchase, Gallery Fund), 2014.79.10

A view across a wide, brightly lit field scattered with broken pieces of stone is framed to the left and right by crumbling stone temples in this horizontal painting. The sunlight is infused with a soft pink glow, which warms the cream-white stone with a pale blush. The temple on our left sits on a low rise, and a row of at least nine columns topped with an entablature faces our right. Several of the columns are broken off, and part of the entablature and the entire roof is missing, from what we can see. Fragments of pediments and wheel-like sections of columns tumble down from its front steps and back along its side, cascading into and across most of the field before us. The rocky terrain is carpeted in celery-green growth speckled with sage green and areas of rust red in the lower left and right corners. Barely visible in the center of the field, are two men, barely taller than the fragments they inspect. One man wears an apricot-orange suit and bowler hat over blond hair. He kneels with his back to us as he writes or sketches on a piece of paper. A second man stands to his right, also with his back to us, dressed in a long pleated, white tunic with a red cap, jacket, and knee-high boots. To our right and farther back than the other temple, a brick-red tower stands next to another columned arcade. A third temple there, or perhaps another part of that building complex, has columns carved into the shape of six identical, robed women, facing our left. Beyond the ruins, the field slopes down to a peach-colored plain that ends at a wide, topaz-blue body of water with mountains in the far distance along the low horizon line. A petal-pink haze rises from the water and mountains and almost fills the blue-gray sky above. The artist has signed and dated the painting in the lower left, “S.R. Gifford 1880.”

American Masterworks from the Corcoran, 1815-1940

Sanford Robinson Gifford, Ruins of the Parthenon, 1880, oil on canvas, Corcoran Collection (Museum Purchase Gallery Fund; Frame restoration generously funded by the Women's Committee of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, 2009), 2014.79.20

The top three-quarters of this horizontal landscape painting is filled with roiling, deeply shadowed clouds that tower over a line of buffalo crossing a grassy meadow below. Small in scale, the buffalo form a line that extends away from us at a diagonal into the distance to our right. Sunlight creates a bright reflection on the stream where the frontmost buffalo crosses, but the other animals are nearly backlit in the raking light. Trees, with branches whipping in the wind, rise along the left side of the painting, and the mountainous landscape to our right is lost in darkness under heavy clouds. The clouds above lighten from navy blue in the lower right corner of the sky to slate blue and white at the center of the painting. Small patches of blue sky are visible between a few breaks in the clouds, and sunlight falls on a cliff-like mountain face in the distance beyond the trees to our left. Another bank of parchment-colored clouds in the upper left corner, closer to us, contrasts with the glimmering light highlighting some of the clouds nearby.

American Masterworks from the Corcoran, 1815-1940

Albert Bierstadt, Buffalo Trail: The Impending Storm, 1869, oil on canvas, Corcoran Collection (Museum purchase, through the gift of Mr. and Mrs. Lansdell K. Christie; Frame: Museum purchase through the gifts of William Wilson Corcoran), 2014.79.3

A band of indigenous Americans ride horses toward and through a herd of buffalo, which spreads along a river that winds through plains to mountains in the deep distance in this horizontal landscape painting. The scene is lit with golden light that warms the browns and harvest yellow of the landscape. Several dead or injured buffalo lie across the ground close to us, along with the body of one hunter, barely visible between the bodies of two animals. Just beyond the corpses, one hunter rides a rearing white horse as he lifts a spear lined with feathers high over a charging buffalo to our right of center. Facing away from us, the rider has light brown skin and a feather headdress over long dark hair. He wears a pumpkin-orange loincloth and red and orange bands encircle the ankle, thigh, wrist, and upper arm facing us. Sage-green grass grows in tufts on the dirt ground, which is littered with several animal skulls around the charging buffalo and rider. A smaller buffalo looks on from our left, and a prairie dog pokes its head out of hole in the ground in the lower left corner. A little distance away to our right, along the edge of the canvas, seven hunters gallop into the scene, leaning forward over their horses’ necks. The dozen or so buffalo nearby, as well as a fox and two deer, move away from the hunters, headed to our left. Hundreds of buffalo dot the landscape along the banks of the winding river and some wade in the water. A few trees rise on the plain but the land is mostly flat until it reaches the mountains and cliffs along the horizon, which comes halfway up this composition. Forms along the horizon could be a line of clouds or snow-covered moutains in the deep distance. A few wispy white clouds float across the watery blue sky above. The artist signed the work in the lower right corner: “Albert Bierstadt.”

American Masterworks from the Corcoran, 1815-1940

Albert Bierstadt, The Last of the Buffalo, 1888, oil on canvas, Corcoran Collection (Gift of Mary Stewart Bierstadt [Mrs. Albert Bierstadt]), 2014.79.5

We look across the gleaming, forest-green surface of a lake at the foot of tall, jagged mountains in this horizontal landscape painting. The lake is flanked by a steep, gingerbread-brown hill on the left and a shoreline that forms a backward C curving from the lower center around and back along the right side of the composition. Strong sunlight from the upper left illuminates the center of the left-hand hill and the shoreline. The ground to our right is carpeted in rust-red, sage-green, and tan growth and is dotted with boulders. Tall trees with rust-brown trunks, crooked branches, and narrow canopies of caramel-brown and olive-green leaves fill the far end. Closest to us are dead tree trunks jutting out of the water and or lying on a flat, rocky outcropping nearby. Beyond the outcropping is a small black bear wandering down a sliver of sand-colored ground at the water’s edge. The hill on the left is covered with vertical rows of upright jagged boulders and slender, dark green trees marching up its slopes. A narrow, artic-blue waterfall cascades down its right side to empty into the lake. A thick layer of towering blue-gray clouds rises over the hill and lake, stretching back to the looming, snow-covered peaks that nearly brush the top edge of the canvas. The sky around the peak is vivid blue, scattered with high white clouds. The artist signed the lower right, “ABierstadt” with the A and B joined as a monogram.

American Masterworks from the Corcoran, 1815-1940

Albert Bierstadt, Mount Corcoran, c. 1876-1877, oil on canvas, Corcoran Collection (Museum purchase, Gallery Fund), 2014.79.4

This vertical canvas is filled with geometric shapes that create patterns in red, blue, yellow, green, black, and white in this abstract painting. The paint is applied with visible brushstrokes, giving some areas a mottled look. Some of the patterns seem to revolve around a red circle near the top center. The circle has a black cross like a plus sign on a white field at its center, and a white band around its perimeter is outlined in black. A blue and white checkered band curves up over the red circle to our left while a banner-like form of alternating, wavy yellow and black lines cascade down to the right of the circle. Horizontal bands of red, white, and black extend across the canvas behind the circle. Below the circle, a blue panel with a curly, cursive red “E” is flanked to the left with a red and white checkerboard, then alternating, almost vertical lines of blue and white. The red number “4” appears on a yellow field at the bottom center of the work, and is flanked by rectangular forms and alternating bands of color to either side.

American Masterworks from the Corcoran, 1815-1940

Marsden Hartley, Berlin Abstraction, 1914/1915, oil on canvas, Corcoran Collection (Museum purchase, Gallery Fund), 2014.79.21

American Masterworks from the Corcoran, 1815-1940

Hiram Powers, The Greek Slave, model 1841-1843, carved 1846, Serravezza marble, Corcoran Collection (Gift of William Wilson Corcoran), 2014.79.37

American Masterworks from the Corcoran, 1815-1940

Thomas Eakins, Singing a Pathetic Song, 1881, oil on canvas, Corcoran Collection (Museum purchase, Gallery Fund), 2014.79.19

From a high vantage point, we look down ontp a group of dozens of boys who stand, sit, stretch, sprawl, or dangle their legs off a rough wooden pier that juts out from the lower left corner into a dark river in this horizonal painting. Their gangly bodies are loosely painted and brightly lit from the upper left. Most are nude, their skin tones ranging from cream white to medium brown. There are gaps between some of the planks of pier, and some of the boards hang off the sides, as if laid loosely across the supports beneath. One boy dives into the river near the center of the painting while another bends over to pull a boy back onto the pier. Several splash in the water near the right side of the painting. The river is emerald green near the brightly lit pier and becomes almost black across the upper half of the painting. An empty, small rowboat painted in stripes of white, white, and blue floats in the shadows along the top center edge of the canvas.

American Masterworks from the Corcoran, 1815-1940

George Bellows, Forty-two Kids, 1907, oil on canvas, Corcoran Collection (Museum purchase, William A. Clark Fund), 2014.79.2

A crusty piece of bread, a short glass of water, a black top hat, a pink conch shell, more than a dozen books, and papers are crammed into an arched alcove in this nearly square still life painting. Lining the bottom edge of the alcove, the long, thin spine of a brown book is printed with the title, “CHOICE CRITICISM ON THE EXHIBITIONS AT PHILADELPHIA” in gold against a red background. To our right, a red portfolio holds a sheaf of loose papers under a thick book titled “LIVES OF THE PAINTERS.” A crusty hunk of bread and a black-handled knife sit on a ceramic plate on the thick book. To our left, two calling cards with handwritten notes lean on the short glass of water. Both are addressed to “Palette” and one is an invitation to visit after tea and other asks about a debt of five dollars. The glass holds open the pages of a book propped against the niche, and the title page reads, “ADVANTAGES OF POVERTY THIRD PART.” The title of a second book behind the glass, missing its cover, reads, “PLEASURES OF HOPE,” though the page is ripped through the word “hope.” The light green, brown, or red spines of a row of books behind this, along the back of the niche, are titled, from left to right: “CHEYENE ON VEGETABLE DIET,” then “MISERIES OF LIFE” to our left, and “BURTONS ANATOMY OF MELANCOL” and “SIGNS OF THE TIMES” near the center. One of the two spines in shadow to our right reads “CALAMITIES OF AUTHOR.” A protractor tucked into a small notebook with a gray cover and red edges leans on the books near the center. More books are piled on top. Three of those spines are written in cursive handwriting with “Unpaid Bills,” “We Fly by Night,” and “No Son No Supper.” The conch shell sits along the edges of the standing books below to our left, with its gleaming rosy pink and golden tan interior facing us. A tightly rolled sheaf of papers wrapped with a sky-blue sheet rests diagonally from the upper left corner of the niche down behind the bread. What looks like a newspaper clipping is tied at the center with the headline “Just Published.” A tattered black top hat is wedged between the tightly rolled paper and loose, curling papers stacked above. One of the loose sheets is titled “LAUGHING PHILOSOPHER” and handwriting on another reads, “Perspective view of the County Gaot of Philadelphia.” Another newspaper clipping is affixed to the upper left face of the beige-colored stone niche. It has the headline, “SHERIFF’S SALE THE PROPERTY OF THE ARTIST,” and continues, “Consisting of One Cradle, One Blanket, Two pair of Ruffles, Petticoat, Silk Stockings, and Peck of Potatoes. Four Pictures, of Roast Pigs, Turkies Decanters of Wine and Plumb Cake Painted from Recollection. Fall of the Giants, and View of Paradise, sixteen feet by twenty. Comforts of Matrimony, odd volume. Short Cut to Wealth. Sermon on The Vanity of Human Pursuits. Philadelphia Jan 1st 1812.”

American Masterworks from the Corcoran, 1815-1940

Charles Bird King, Poor Artist's Cupboard, c. 1815, oil on wood,Corcoran Collection (Museum purchase, Gallery Fund and exchange), 2014.79.24

From atop a high hill, we look across a broad valley leading to a winding river in this loosely painted horizontal landscape. The scene is created entirely with visible brushstrokes in fresh and vibrant green and shimmering and smoky blues. The hill slopes from the right edge of the painting down to the valley, which extends into the distance, angling slightly to our right alongside the river. Darker green trees are along both sides of the river, and a few buildings line the far bank. The land beyond rises to sapphire-blue hills along the horizon, which comes about two-thirds of the way up the composition. A few white clouds dot the robin’s egg-blue sky above.

American Masterworks from the Corcoran, 1815-1940

Theodore Robinson, The Valley of the Seine, from the Hills of Giverny, 1892, oil on canvas, Corcoran Collection (Museum purchase, Gallery Fund), 2014.79.30

A sunlit bowl of pale and deep pink flowers sits on a white curtain draped over the sill of an open window in this vertical still life painting. The sill comes about a third of the way up the composition, and the open window and landscape beyond fills the top two-thirds. Shell-pink and ruby-red flowers with pine-green leaves fill the shallow, slate-gray bowl. Sunshine highlights one white flower and one blush-pink flower, perhaps roses. The white curtain falls over the right half of the window and pools on the sill before draping down and off the bottom edge of the composition. Sunlight dapples the curtain and the surface of the sill, and the paneling of the wall below the window is white. A tawny-brown path winds through a pale green lawn and around an ivory-colored house in the landscape seen through the window. The sky turns from silvery blue above to light mauve pink around trees lining the horizon in the distance.

American Masterworks from the Corcoran, 1815-1940

John La Farge, Flowers on a Window Ledge, c. 1861, oil on canvas, Corcoran Collection (Museum purchase, Anna E. Clark Fund), 2014.79.25

American Masterworks from the Corcoran, 1815-1940

Alfred Jacob Miller, Election Scene, Catonsville, Baltimore County, c. 1860, oil on academy board, Corcoran Collection (Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Lansdell K. Christie), 2014.79.26

The head and shoulders of a cleanshaven, light-skinned man with black hair and a lined face is shown against a dark background in this vertical portrait. His body is angled to our right and he looks in that direction with blue-gray eyes under black brows. His hair is combed loosely back from his face but one lock falls onto his forehead, and it curls around the ear we can see. His prominent cheekbones are lightly flushed over hollow cheeks, which create noticeable shadows. He has a long nose, and his thin pink lips are closed. His forehead, the corners of his eyes, and the areas around his mouth and chin are lined with wrinkles. His black suit jacket has wide rounded lapels over a white buttoned shirt. The collar folds over a black bow tie and the two buttons visible on this shirt shine. Next to his left shoulder, on our right, the artist signed and dated the work with red paint: “G.P.A. Healy 1860.”

American Masterworks from the Corcoran, 1815-1940

George Peter Alexander Healy, Abraham Lincoln, 1860, oil on canvas, Corcoran Collection (Museum purchase, Gallery Fund), 2014.79.22

A buoy and a sailboat with three men and a woman tip at an angle on rolling aquamarine and azure-blue waves in this horizontal painting. The white wooden boat sails away from us toward the right side of the composition. Its unfurled sail is tinged with taupe and pale blue and attached to a pale wooden mast. The boat has a low cabin with round portholes on the side we can see. Two of the men are shirtless, tanned, and have their backs to us. One sits in the cockpit wearing a white hat with a short brim as he holds the tiller. The other man stands on the deck with his arms crossed. Beyond the standing man, the woman lies along the roof of the cabin, her head at about the height of the man’s chest. She is barefoot and lies on her stomach wearing long, blue pants and a watermelon-pink halter top and matching kerchief covering her hair. The third man stands to her right, his slender body angled toward us while holding onto the mast with one hand and rigging with the other. The woman and third man have noticeably pale skin. A buoy near the boat is battleship-gray with streaks of rust along its base and a copper-green bell inside. It floats just to the left of and tips toward the boat on a rising swell. The scene is lit by bright sunlight coming from the left side of the baby-blue sky with bands of feathery clouds, which takes up the top two-thirds of the composition. The artist signed the lower right, “EDWARD HOPPER.”

American Masterworks from the Corcoran, 1815-1940

Edward Hopper, Ground Swell, 1939, oil on canvas, Corcoran Collection (Museum purchase, William A. Clark Fund), 2014.79.23

A woman with pale skin and dressed in white sits on a couch gazing into the distance to our left as she raises one arm to stroke a black cat perched on her shoulder in this vertical portrait. Shown from the lap up, the woman’s dress has voluminous, puffed, elbow-length sleeves and a high collar, and her narrow waist is cinched with a white sash. Her dark brown hair is parted down the middle and tied back, and she has pale blue eyes and pink lips. She reaches up to the cat with her left hand, on our right, and her other hand, farther from us, rests flat in her lap. The black cat looks at us with greenish-yellow eyes as it almost disappears into the dark brown background above the white couch, which is decorated with a blue pattern. The artist signed the work with dark letters in the lower left corner: “Cecilia Beaux.”

American Masterworks from the Corcoran, 1815-1940

Cecilia Beaux, Sita and Sarita, c. 1921, oil on canvas, Corcoran Collection (Museum purchase, William A. Clark Fund), 2014.79.1

We look across a shaded field of snow, through a screen of loosely spaced trees at a cobalt-blue mountain that dominates this square landscape painting. The scene is painted with visible brushstrokes throughout. The base of the mountain comes about a third of the way up the composition, and a narrow band of vibrant turquoise sky runs above it, along the top edge of the canvas. The mountain curves up to its gentle peak to our left of center and slopes down gradually to our right. Patches of white snow stand out against the deep blue mountain just above the treetops. Trees along the mountaintop create a choppy contour against the sky. The broad summit of a second mountain beyond, to our right, is lit by the sun so the face is golden tan, shaded with denim blue. The slopes are painted with thick strokes that create texture on the surface of the canvas. The snowy field close to us is painted with loose brushstrokes in arctic blue. The trees are painted with deep, olive-green foliage or needles and tall, dark, straight trunks. Patches of topaz blue and fuchsia pink appear on the ground among trees to our left.

American Masterworks from the Corcoran, 1815-1940

Abbott Handerson Thayer, Mount Monadnock, probably 1911/1914, oil on canvas, Corcoran Collection (Museum purchase, Anna E. Clark Fund), 2014.79.34

Two men play cards at a wooden table in a tavern while a third stands on the far side of the table between them, wearing green-lensed glasses and reading a newspaper in this horizontal painting. The men have pale skin and ruddy cheeks. The man on our side of the table sits with his back to us in a wood chair painted mustard yellow. He wears a black top hat and a long-tailed coat. He looks down at the splayed playing cards he holds in one hand and he touches the top edges of the cards with the other. A striped traveling bag leans against the table leg next to his chair. Across from him and facing us, a bearded man leans onto the table, arms folded and cards in one hand. He looks at the other player with squinting eyes and lips parted. He wears a blue coat over a striped shirt, and a silver ring on the third finger of one hand. He holds his stacked cards face down that hand and rests the other hand in that elbow. A black top hat sits brim-down on the bench next to him, and, under the table, the toes of the foot we see tilt upward. At least six silver coins and more cards are on the table. A coin purse is near the man wearing black, and a long tray holds an open decanter and a glass, both filled with amber-brown liquid. A silver object, perhaps the handle of a spoon, is propped in the glass and the stopper for the decanter is next to the tray. The man reading the newspaper wears a fur-lined cap and a brown coat over a high-collared white shirt. His neck is wrapped in a blue scarf dotted with white, which is tied at his throat. The newspaper droops toward us to show the masthead, which reads “THE SPY.” In the room behind the trio, a pewter teapot and white teacup sit on a wood-burning stove and shelves hold bottles and small barrels. A snuffed candle is on a shelf next to the stovepipe, near a chalk board about the size of a piece of copier paper. Someone has drawn a man’s bearded face with white chalk on the board. Two postcard-sized papers are tucked into a gold-framed, arch-topped mirror behind the standing man. A few bits of broken white smoking pipes are on and near a round, rust-red container on the wood-plank floor, to our left of the table. The artist signed and dated the work in the lower right corner, “R.C.W. 1851. Paris.”

American Masterworks from the Corcoran, 1815-1940

Richard Caton Woodville, Waiting for the Stage, 1851, oil on canvas, Corcoran Collection (Museum purchase, Gallery Fund, William A. Clark Fund, and through the gifts of Mr. and Mrs. Lansdell K. Christie and Orme Wilson; Frame: Museum purchase through the gifts of William Wilson Corcoran), 2014.79.36

American Masterworks from the Corcoran, 1815-1940

Thomas Cole, The Departure, 1837, oil on canvas, Corcoran Collection (Gift of William Wilson Corcoran), 2014.79.13

American Masterworks from the Corcoran, 1815-1940

William Sidney Mount, The Tough Story - Scene in a Country Tavern, 1837, oil on wood, Corcoran Collection (Museum purchase, Gallery Fund), 2014.79.28

We look across a cavernous room with a half-domed ceiling where more than a hundred men are gathered at desks and theater-like boxes in this horizontal painting. Almost all of the men have pale, peachy skin and wear black suits with white high-pointed collars. The desks curve in a half-circle facing our left, where two candelabras sit on a dais, a canopied space with polished columns. Seven more columns lining the rounded space are also speckled with fawn brown, bronze, copper, and muted moss green. They have white capitals carved with leaves ands scrolls. Crimson-red curtains hung between the columns have been gathered up along their centers so they drape down to each side. The space is lit by a three-tiered chandelier near the center of the composition. The chandelier has been lowered and a man, backlit in silhouette, stands on a ladder and reaches for a light on the top tier. The other men sit singly or in groups at the desks or gather in small groups throughout the space. The D-shaped rows of desks are enclosed within a curving, waist-high wall. To our right, on our side of the wall, a pair of boys or men lean over an open box that is lit inside. A few people look on from a second-level balcony to our right. This includes a trio of men all wearing black. In the next bay, a man with medium-brown skin wears Pawnee attire with a tall headdress, necklaces, and what seems to be a fur-lined cloak. He looks out at us. A clock on the wall near him reads 6:14. The domed space has nested, ivory-white square or octagonal panels within gold borders. At the center of each panel is a six-petaled, gold flower. The artist signed the work as if he had written his name and date on the base of the wall to our left: “S.F.B. MORSE pinx 1822.”

American Masterworks from the Corcoran, 1815-1940

Samuel Finley Breese Morse, The House of Representatives, 1822, probably reworked 1823 oil on canvas, Corcoran Collection (Museum purchase, Gallery Fund), 2014.79.27

This exhibition is no longer on view at the National Gallery.

Overview: In 2014 the National Gallery of Art assumed stewardship of the Corcoran Gallery of Art’s renowned collection of paintings, sculpture, decorative arts, prints, drawings, and photographs. Two installations featuring highlights from the Corcoran collection are on view in the West Building through May 3, 2015. On the main floor, 29 American paintings and two sculptures have been installed in two galleries prior to the integration of works from the Corcoran into the permanent collection. A number of celebrated paintings are included: Frederic Edwin Church’s Niagara, Albert Bierstadt’s The Last of the Buffalo, Sanford Robinson Gifford’s Ruins of the Parthenon, Samuel F. B. Morse’s The House of Representatives, Edward Hopper’s Ground Swell, and Aaron Douglas’s Into Bondage. One of the most famous sculptures of the 19th century, Hiram Powers’s The Greek Slave, is on view in the first room of the installation. Frederic Remington’s bronze sculpture, Off the Range (Coming Through the Rye), a lively depiction of cowboy revelry, anchors the second room in which Bierstadt’s Buffalo Trail: The Impending Storm and Mount Corcoran are also on view.