Pandora

1910/1912

Odilon Redon

Artist, French, 1840 - 1916

A pale-skinned young woman with copper-orange hair, wearing a turquoise-blue robe, stands in a pastel-infused landscape in this stylized, vertical painting. The woman fills most of the left half of the composition. She faces our right in profile with her head bowed as she looks down at the silver and brown box she holds in her right hand, closer to us. Her body angles away from us so we see her back. Her hair is held back under a gold-colored headand, and her blue robe falls over a white skirt. Beyond her, rocky mountains in ice blue and pale lilac purple span the horizon, which comes about three-quarters of the way up the painting, beneath a pale, rose-pink sky. An area of mottled parchment-white to our right of the person could be a field. Along the bottom edge of the canvas, rounded and organic shapes in scarlet red, turquoise, lapis blue, golden and lemon yellow, and pumpkin orange could be abstracted earth or flowers at the woman’s feet.

Media Options

This object’s media is free and in the public domain. Read our full Open Access policy for images.
On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 80

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Chester Dale Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 143.5 x 62.9 cm (56 1/2 x 24 3/4 in.)
    framed: 161.9 x 81 cm (63 3/4 x 31 7/8 in.)

  • Accession

    1963.10.56

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Jules Chavasse, Paris; (his sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 22 June 1922, no. 26, repro.). Mrs. A. Bing, New York, by 1928.[1] (Reinhardt Galleries, New York); probably by whom sold to Mrs. Lotus Robb Smith, New York, c. 1927/28 until at least 1931; sold 1937 by an anonymous collector to (Julius H. Weitzner [1896-1986], London and New York);[2] sold 20 October 1950 to Chester Dale [1882-1962], New York; gift 1963 to NGA.
[1]Lent by Mrs. Bing to exhibition at Cesar de Hauke's New York gallery in 1928; see Seligmann papers at the Archives of American Art, box 406 (copy NGA curatorial files).
[2]See Weitzner receipt dated 20 October 1950 in NGA curatorial files. The anonymous collector who sold Weitzner the painting is almost certainly Mr. Smith, whom Lotus Robb divorced c. 1937. She later married Mr. Marvin Ross, who detailed how she returned the paintings to her former husband when they divorced, and he immediately sold them; see note by David Rust dated January 1965 in NGA curatorial files.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1928

  • Odilon Redon, De Hauke & Co., New York, 1928, no. 11.

1940

  • Possibly Masterpieces of Art. European & American Paintings 1500-1900, New York World's Fair, 1940, no. 350.

1947

  • Symbolism in Painting, Museum of Modern Art, New York, and numerous other venues, 1947-1948.

1965

  • The Chester Dale Bequest, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1965, unnumbered checklist.

2010

  • From Impressionism to Modernism: The Chester Dale Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, January 2010-January 2012, unnumbered catalogue, repro.

Bibliography

1965

  • Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Paintings & Sculpture of the French School in the Chester Dale Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 138, repro.

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 108.

  • Frankfurter, Alfred. "How Great is the Dale Collection?" Art News 64 (May 1965):40-43, 51-53, repro.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 96, repro.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 282, repro.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 515, no. 770, color repro.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 327, repro.

Inscriptions

lower right: ODILON REDON

Wikidata ID

Q18001840

You may be interested in

Loading Results