Dutch and Flemish Paintings

On View: West Building, Main Floor

166 artworks on view.

This is a painting of various colorful birds and a monkey framed by two tall trees. The birds are of different varieties and have striking plumage, including a bird of paradise with yellow and red feathers, a peacock with long, colorful tail feathers, and several smaller birds with vividly colored wings. At the center of the image, a brown hawk faces us. Two of the birds are depicted perched on branches, while two stand on the ground and the other three are in mid-air with their wings extended. In the lower right corner, a small gray monkey is shown sitting on the ground next to the tree. At the bottom of the image are a few short ferns and patches of grass, but most of the background is blank paper.

Study of Birds and Monkey

Anonymous Artist

1660/1670

Oil on copper Accession ID 1983.19.1

Not on view

Two monkeys and five birds are painted in meticulous detail against a mostly pearl-white background on this horizontal composition. A spindly tree trunk grows up each side of the painting, and a few tufts of grass are tucked near the trees and at the bottom center of the composition. A red-furred monkey crouches holding a piece of fruit at the center of the painting, and a second piece of fruit lies nearby. Another, lemur-like monkey clings to a tree growing up the right edge, peering at us. A teal-blue parrot perches on a branch above that second monkey, and a hefty, yellow and green bird perches on another branch over the first. Two long-legged, long-necked birds stand to either side of the seated red monkey, with a dove-gray bird to the left and a tawny brown one with pale green legs to the right. A smaller blue, white, and orange bird stands on the ground near the seated monkey and another, this one blue and red, flies above.

Study of Birds and Monkeys

Anonymous Artist

1660/1670

Oil on copper Accession ID 1983.19.2

Not on view

A three-masted warship against a sky piled with clouds fills most of the right half of this vertical painting. The cream-white sails are bright in the sunlight, and tiny deckhands work along the horizontal yards and along the rigging. The flat stern faces us and is decorated with a rearing lion and unicorn on either side of a shield among gold molding. Eight hatches along the port side of the ship are lifted, and smoke shoots out of one of the cannons poking through the openings. Six men row a boat carrying seven more men to the left. A large flag fluttering from the stern has a red and white cross on a blue field. A single-masted sailboat with its red sail furled has pulled up to the stern of the warship, and three people work there. Another warship with sails partially raised floats in the hazy background to the left. The horizon comes about a quarter of the way up the composition, and clouds shaded with muted peach and lavender-tinted gray fill the sky along the horizon and break along the top third of the painting. Minuscule in scale, two white and black birds fly low to the water near the lower right corner of the painting. The artist signed and dated the painting as if he had inscribed a piece of driftwood near the birds: “W. V Velde In Londen 1673.”

An English Warship Firing a Salute

Willem van de Velde the Younger

1673

Oil on canvas Accession ID 2018.10.1

Not on view

We look down and across a river valley into a mountainous landscape in this horizontal painting. Most of the mountains, trees, and buildings in the middle and deep distance are painted in tones of ice and cobalt blue. The horizon comes about halfway up the painting. In the sky, an intense gold glow comes from the left and illuminates the clouds across the picture. A field of flat aquamarine-blue sky shows through the clouds at the top center. The land closest to us is dark brown and green, backlit by the low sunlight. A vertical, rocky outcropping rises almost the height of the painting along the left edge. Trees create fuzzy outlines along the top of the cliff, and two people, wearing red, dark blue, and brown walk along a path about halfway down the outcropping. About a dozen more people and children, along with some horses or mules, walk, stand, or sit along paths leading to and around some coffee-brown buildings at the foot of the outcropping. More people work on and around boats in the arctic-blue river that winds into the distance along the right edge of the composition.

Imaginary River Landscape

Herman Saftleven

1670

Oil on panel Accession ID 2016.147.1

Not on view

Two Peasants with a Glass of Wine

David Teniers the Younger

c. 1645

Oil on panel Accession ID 1992.27.1

Not on view

A basket overflowing with grapes and surrounded by dead birds and more fruit sits on a long table covered in a scarlet-red cloth in this horizontal still life painting. In the basket at the center of the painting, luminous green, blue-black, red, and purple grapes are piled up in a rough pyramid that overflows the sides. Long stems with broad sage and celery-green leaves edged with brown jut up above and to the side of the bunches of grapes, nearly touching the top edge of the painting. Just in front of the basket to our left, a bowl overflowing with a bunch of purple grapes is tipped toward us. The inside of the bowl is painted with cobalt-blue, geometric, vegetal designs against a white background. Behind it, at the far left, a tall, bronze, footed serving dish stacked high with pale green and black-skinned figs is cut off by the left edge of the composition. In front of and to the right of the central basket, the bodies of about two dozen small and medium-sized birds fill the right half of the tabletop. About ten small birds are arranged along a stick between a pair of dead birds to our left and a pile of several larger birds to our right. The birds’ feathers and bodies are painted in shades of cream and parchment white, ink black, ruby red, tawny brown, and butter and golden yellow. The fruit and birds are lit from the upper left, and the backround is earth brown.

Still Life with Grapes and Game

Frans Snyders

c. 1630

Oil on panel Accession ID 2006.22.1

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M44

A glass holding a loose bouquet of flowers set within an oval is surrounded by eight insects against an off-white surface in this vertical still life painting. It is impossible to tell whether the oval is an opening piercing the white surface or if the still life is an oval-shaped painting sitting on top of the white surface. The glass holding the flowers has straight, slightly flaring sides with a ring of textured knubs around the bottom third. Flowers in the glass include a white lily of the valley, yellow and purple violet, blue grape hyacinth, yellow narcissus, red poppy, upside-down cup-shaped pink snake’s head fritillary, and stems of greenery. The bouquet is lit from the left, and a ray of light focused by the glass falls across the back edge of the wooden ledge on which the glass sits. Two drops of water bead on the ledge, and the artist signed the front face of the ledge, “CLARA P.” The background behind the flowers within the oval is black. The bugs on the white surface are much larger in scale, painted precisely so anatomical details can be made out. Across the top are a dragonfly with a green body, a house fly with red eyes, and a dragonfly with a red body. A fuzzy caterpillar is to the left of the oval and a hornet is to the right. Across the bottom are a snail, a ladybug, and a beetle with a black body and red wings and legs.

Still Life with Flowers Surrounded by Insects and a Snail

Clara Peeters

c. 1610

Oil on copper Accession ID 2018.144.1

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M50

A Hanging Wall Pouch

Cornelis Norbertus Gijsbrechts

c. 1677

Oil on panel, mirrored glass Accession ID 2022.181.81

Not on view

Esther and Mordecai

Hendrick van Steenwijk the Younger

1616

Oil on panel Accession ID 2006.20.1

Not on view

The head, shoulders, and chest of a pale-skinned man with gray hair and deep wrinkles creasing his face fill this vertical portrait painting. His shoulders angle slightly to our right, and he looks up and off in that direction. Light comes from our upper left, so the far side of his craggy face is in deep shadow. His brown eyes are deep-set sockets under a furrowed brow. He has a straight, prominent nose, and his thin lips are surrounded by wrinkles at the corners with more lines on his knob-like chin and between his nose and upper lip. Tendons and wrinkles stand out on his thick neck. Unruly locks of ash-gray hair stand up from his head over a pink-edged ear. His upper chest is bare within the gaping opening of his nickel-gray shirt, which is under a barn-red garment. The background is earth brown.

Head of an Old Man

Abraham Bloemaert

1625/1628

Oil on panel Accession ID 2010.93.41

Not on view

A child and woman stand at the open door of an entryway with black and white marble floors, as the child drops a coin into the hat of a disheveled boy accompanied by a nursing mother across the threshold in this vertical painting. Beyond the entryway, a man and woman look on from a room with a landscape painting hanging over a tall mantle. All the people have pale skin. The child standing with the woman inside, near the door, looks at us with gray eyes. Blond ringlets frame a round face with full cheeks, a snub nose, and parted coral-red lips. The ringlets are tied with butter-yellow ribbons and the rest of the head is covered with a white cap. The child’s garment has a wide, flaring, flat collar, a tight-fitting bodice, and a flaring, floor-length skirt. Pale plum-purple, puffy sleeves are tied with pale yellow and azure-blue ribbons, and a cape of the same fabric lined with pale grass-green falls from the shoulders. A medallion hangs from a thick gold chain looped over the child’s right shoulder, to our left, across to the opposite hip. The child touches the hand of the woman standing behind with one hand, to our right, and drops a silver coin into the proffered hat with the other. The woman’s body faces us but she turns her oval-shaped face to look down at the boy holding out his hat. She wears a scarlet-red, long-sleeved bodice with a wide, white collar over her chest. A taupe-brown apron covers her dark skirt and her bonnet is long on the sides, draping to brush her shoulders. She rests her right hand, to our left, on her stomach and touches the fingertips of the child in front of her with the other. Near the lower right corner of the painting, a small white dog with ginger-brown spots stands on the black and white marble floor, looking up toward the exchange. Light pours into the entryway through the open door and a transom window above it. The walls are light gray and the doorways are surrounded with darker gray molding. A painting of a landscape hangs above the doorway leading to the room beyond. The man and woman there look at us from in front of a mantle that is taller than the woman who stands next to the man, who is seated. The woman’s hair is pulled back under a cap, and she wears a silver-gray dress lined with a wide band of white fur. She holds one hand to her waist and gestures toward the foyer with the other. The man wears a black suit with a wide, flat collar. The floor in this room is a checkerboard pattern of white and brick-red squares, and sky-blue panels with gilded leafy designs cover part of the walls. A carved stone cherub like a small, chubby child, stands on the mantle to our left, next to the landscape painting there. Back in the entryway, across the threshold, the boy steps with one foot onto the floor of the foyer as he holds out his frayed, brimmed hat. He has short-cropped blond hair and wears a mustard-yellow shirt with tattered brown pants. The nursing woman stands next to the door, out of sight of the people inside, holding a baby to one round breast. The boy and woman’s faces, necks, and hands are noticeably tanned, almost orange. Two small children huddle, almost out of sight, in the narrow space between the boy and the left edge of the painting. They look down onto a few light tan disks, perhaps coins, on the step in front of them. In the distance beyond the family are a few trees and buildings beneath a vibrant blue sky with puffy white clouds. The artist signed and dated the painting in the lower right corner, “J. Ochtervelt f. 1663.”

A Nurse and a Child in an Elegant Foyer

Jacob Ochtervelt

1663

Oil on canvas Accession ID 2015.68.1

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M50

This painting depicts a person from head to toe, standing upright and looking off to the right. The person has a round face with fair skin and slightly flushed cheeks. Their long hair is curly and blond, peeking out from underneath a fluffy, off-white fur hat. They are dressed in a voluminous cream coat with a thick, fur-like texture, tied with a green ribbon at their neck. Their coat and hat have hints of brown and rosy pink among the light tufts. Underneath the fur coat appears to be a green cloak and a thick brown jacket, and they wear a long, decorated brown skirt with dark brown patterns down the front and around the hem. Below the skirt, pointed black shoes with red laces are visible. In their left arm, the figure holds a long stick with a hooked end next to a small ball near their feet. Their other hand rests on their hip. The floor is light gray, and the space behind them is dark gray.

Moses ter Borch Holding a Kolf Stick

Gesina ter Borch, Gerard ter Borch the Younger

c. 1655

Oil on panel Accession ID 2022.106.1

Not on view