Past Exhibition

Larger Than Life: Ter Brugghen's Saint Sebastian Tended by Irene

Shown from the lap up, a man with pale skin sits facing our right in profile, playing a bagpipe in this vertical painting. He is lit from our left so his face is in shadow, and he looks off to our right. He has dark eyebrows, a chestnut-brown mustache and short beard, and a rounded nose. He wears a floppy, chocolate-brown beret that covers his hair and the ear facing us. A cream-white, voluminous shirt falls off the shoulder close to us, and a fawn-brown robe gathers around his lap. He blows into a long mouthpiece as he squeezes the tawny-brown bag of the instrument between his forearms. Two long, wooden pipes rest over his shoulder, and he covers the finger-holes of the flute-like chanter at the front of the bag. The background behind him is pale peanut brown. The artist signed and dated the painting just to the right of the musician’s face, “HTBrugghen fecit 1624,” with the HTB intertwined into a monogram.
Hendrick ter Brugghen, Bagpipe Player, 1624, oil on canvas, Paul Mellon Fund and Greg and Candy Fazakerley Fund, 2009.24.1

Details

  • Dates

    -

  • Locations

    West Building, Main Floor, Gallery 44
Shown from the lap up, a man with pale skin sits facing our right in profile, playing a bagpipe in this vertical painting. He is lit from our left so his face is in shadow, and he looks off to our right. He has dark eyebrows, a chestnut-brown mustache and short beard, and a rounded nose. He wears a floppy, chocolate-brown beret that covers his hair and the ear facing us. A cream-white, voluminous shirt falls off the shoulder close to us, and a fawn-brown robe gathers around his lap. He blows into a long mouthpiece as he squeezes the tawny-brown bag of the instrument between his forearms. Two long, wooden pipes rest over his shoulder, and he covers the finger-holes of the flute-like chanter at the front of the bag. The background behind him is pale peanut brown. The artist signed and dated the painting just to the right of the musician’s face, “HTBrugghen fecit 1624,” with the HTB intertwined into a monogram.
Hendrick ter Brugghen, Bagpipe Player, 1624, oil on canvas, Paul Mellon Fund and Greg and Candy Fazakerley Fund, 2009.24.1

Overview: Two paintings by Hendrick ter Brugghen, Saint Sebastian Tended by Irene and The Bagpipe Player, were shown together for the first time in this focus exhibition. On loan from the Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, Ohio, Saint Sebastian Tended by Irene had been on view at The Phillips Collection in Washington, DC, from September 11, 2010 to January 16, 2011, before coming to the National Gallery of Art. The Bagpipe Player had been acquired by the National Gallery of Art in 2009.

Organization: The exhibition was organized by the National Gallery of Art.

Sponsor: The exhibition was made possible by the support of Michael A. Glass.

You may also like

Two men on logs surrounded by the rapids of the Hudson River with green trees on both sides and a blue sky with white puffy clouds.

Exhibition:  American Landscapes in Watercolor from the Corcoran Collection

Kwame Brathwaite's photograph of a young woman, Untitled (Portrait, Reels as Necklace), c. 1972

Exhibition:  Photography and the Black Arts Movement, 1955–1985