French Paintings

On View: West Building, Main Floor

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110 artworks on view.

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The sculpture is a bust depicting a young girl with delicate features. Her head is slightly turned to the left, and she has a neutral expression. Her hair is styled up in a bun on the back of her head. The bust includes her bare shoulders and upper chest. It is white and mounted on a dark gray pedestal.

Louise Brongniart

Jean-Antoine Houdon

1777

Marble  Accession ID  1942.9.124

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M55
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A masted ship with tattered sails crashes near a rocky shore among choppy waves, beneath a sky filled with charcoal-gray clouds in this horizontal landscape painting. More then two dozen men and women are scattered among the wreckage and along the shore. They all have pale skin and are small in scale within the landscape. Some of them are barefoot, and they wear clothing in ivory white, ruby red, slate gray, beige, or teal blue. The tall mast of the ship pitches at a steep angle from near the lower right corner of the canvas toward the upper left. A narrow red flag streams in the wind from the top of the mast. Seven men cling to the crow’s nest, a platform near the top of the mast, and on the mast around it. More people work amid a fallen sail on the ship’s deck and dangle from the rigging that is being pulled ashore by others. The ship’s second mast is broken in half, splintered where it has fallen against jagged boulders in the lower right corner. On the shore, a woman wearing a pink dress and blue stockings holds her arms up to the sky as a bare-chested man wraps his arms around her waist. A man nearby hunches over as he hauls in a cage from the surf. To our left, a second woman is surrounded by three men, two of whom support her torso. She wears a pale yellow skirt and her white shirt has fallen to expose one breast. Two trunks and a large roll of cloth are piled behind the trio, to our left. On the other side of the group, a brown dog sits and looks back over its shoulder toward a man who rolls a barrel onto the beach. A rocky, vertical cliff nearly spans the height of the left edge of the painting, and the cliffs continue along the waterline into the distance. Two people perch on a rocky outcropping near those on the beach, and a tree with a cracked, splintered trunk is doubled back by the wind above the pair. Water sprays high against the cliffs beyond, and a fortress with a castle sits atop the cliffs in the distance. Farther out in the water and to our right, a second ship with sails bulging in the wind lurches to the right. A streak of bright, golden-yellow lightning zigzags in the bank of clouds over this ship and reaches the horizon to our left, illuminating the low skyline of a town in the deep distance, beyond the cliffs. The clouds around the lightning are bathed in coral-peach light, but the surrounding clouds are dark gray. The artist signed and dated the work as if he had inscribed the side of one trunk, near the lower left corner, “J. Vernet F. 1772.”

The Shipwreck

Claude-Joseph Vernet

1772

Oil on canvas  Accession ID  2000.22.1

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M55
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A nude, young woman with smooth, pale skin reclines against a grassy mound in a sunny field in this long, horizontal landscape painting. The scene is painted with blended strokes, giving it a soft look. The woman is close to us near the lower center of the painting. With her head to our left, she leans against the low mound supporting her back. Her body is angled mostly away from us, but she turns to look back at us over her shoulder. Her right arm is draped casually over her right hip. The fingers of that hand brush the rim of an iron-gray dish on the ground beside her. Her left foot is tucked under her extended right leg. She has large brown eyes under thick brows, a slender nose, and red lips set in her round face. Her dark brown hair is swept up and gathered at the back of her head. A leafy wreath or headdress is suggested by daubs of sage and avocado green, and a long stroke of brown paint could be a ribbon hanging down her back. She lies on a caramel-brown cloth or pelt dotted with black and streaked with white at the edges. The olive-green field around her is smoothly painted and speckled with dots of white, gold, and light blue, suggesting small flowers. Four shadowy figures cluster in the distance on the right side. Two hold up a gleaming object, perhaps a cup or jug. The scene is framed along the right edge of the painting by a delicate, leafy tree curving up and over from a rocky outcropping. The landscape extends far into the distance where it meets a line of low hills at the horizon, which comes halfway up the canvas. The pale blue sky above is filled with long bands of smoke-gray and white clouds. The artist signed and dated the work with orange letters in the lower left, “Corot 1860.”

The Repose

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot

1860, reworked c. 1865/1870

Oil on canvas  Accession ID  2014.79.709

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M90
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The head, shoulders, and upper chest of a man wearing a curly wig are carved from white marble in this freestanding portrait sculpture. In this photograph, the man’s body and face are squared to us but his eyes cut to our right. His high forehead is lined, and there are crow’s feet around his eyes and wrinkles down the sides of his mouth. His thin lips are pulled up in a slight smile. The hair of his wig is brushed back, and it falls in tiers of dense curls to his shoulders. A white cloth is tied around his sinewy neck, and ruffles peek from the opening of his buttoned vest under his coat. The bust is curved along the bottom edge and sits on a round, stone pedestal. The sculpture is photographed against a gray background.

Voltaire

Jean-Antoine Houdon

1778

Marble  Accession ID  1942.9.127

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M53
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A narrow strip of beach and then a vivid turquoise stretch of water give way to a towering, hazy sky in this square landscape painting. The beach is painted with strokes of tan and peachy brown and skimmed with dark brown or black to create the impression of rocks or shells. The water extends to the horizon, which comes a quarter of the way up this composition, in shades of topaz and powder blue. Piles of fluffy clouds above are painted with loose strokes of cotton and gossamer white, creating a soft, blurred look. The artist signed and dated the canvas in the lower left corner with red paint, “’66 Gustave Courbet.”

Calm Sea

Gustave Courbet

1866

Oil on canvas  Accession ID  1985.64.10

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M92
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Twelve men and perhaps a child, who is bald and wears a brown robe, kneel, sit, or prostrate themselves in front of an altar piled with three skulls in this almost square painting. All the men appear to have pale, peachy skin and wear tattered robes with hoods in shades of sky or slate blue, peanut brown, terracotta orange, or silvery gray. The man closest to the altar holds up a long cross so it almost touches the skulls. He kneels and bows deeply so his hood completely hides his face. Three more men are near him in this grouping, and another rests on the broken base of a column as he reaches forward, head bowed. The child and two taller adults stand in the background along the left edge of the composition, and four more men are clustered in the lower right corner. The two to the left in this final group have chains wrapped around their torsos and are barefoot. The leftmost reclines on one hip and looks at the open book he holds. The other two men kneel. Carnation-pink and sapphire-blue robes lie across the two steps where these four people gather. Another book and glimmering objects, perhaps pieces of armor and maybe another skull, are heaped in a pile to the left. Beyond all the people, a mint-green curtain just taller than the standing men hangs across the lower portion of a row of columns in front of pearl-white walls with molding, columns, and an arched doorway. Some brushstrokes are loose, especially in the clothing and background.

The Adoration of the Skulls

Michel-François Dandré-Bardon

c. 1733/1734

Oil on canvas  Accession ID  1956.3.1

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M55
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Moss-green land rising to a tree-topped bluff follows the curve of a sandy beach surrounding a pale blue cove in this horizontal landscape painting. The hill and olive-green trees take up most of the height of the left side of the composition. The beach curves from the lower right corner back and to our left, and curves around the cliff face of the bluff. Closest to us, the land is flecked with saffron gold, and two dark brown patches smear the sand. The beach or a sandbar creates a strip of pale brown across the horizon, which comes halfway up the canvas. Distant hills to our left are suggested by a battleship-gray slope. The slate-blue sky above is layered with swirls and bands of oyster-white and pewter-gray clouds. The artist signed the lower left, “COROT.”

Beach near Etretat

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot

c. 1872

Oil on canvas  Accession ID  1970.17.117

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M91
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A white marble sculpture shows the head and upper chest of an elderly, gaunt, bald, smiling man. In this photograph, the man’s face is angled to our right, and he looks off in that direction with hooded eyes under bushy brows. His forehead, eyes, and mouth are lined with wrinkles. He has a bulbous, slightly hooked nose and high cheekbones. He smiles with his thin lips together. There is a fringe of hair over the ear we can see, and his head is otherwise smooth. The tendons on his neck stand out. The narrow base of the sculpture curves in a U down past his collarbones, and is supported on a charcoal-gray, polished marble base. The sculpture casts a light shadow against a pale gray background to our left in this photograph.

Voltaire

Jean-Antoine Houdon

1778

Marble  Accession ID  1963.10.240

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M53
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We look across a lush landscape of olive-green forests lining a glimmering, silvery-blue lake with hills in the deep distance under a pale blue sky in this horizontal landscape painting. The scene is painted with some visible and some blended brushstrokes to give it a hazy, soft appearance. A man wearing a red cap and a white shirt sits in a long, low, narrow boat with a pointed bow in the grasses along the shore, near the bottom center of the composition. Gnarled tree trunks, one to each side, frame the view beyond. Towering, leafy trees nearly fill the right half of the painting. To our left, the still surface of the lake leads back to a city painted almost in silhouette with flint blue, which is reflected in the surface of the water. Hills and mountains are painted in bands of lightening blue as they recede into the deep distance to our left. The horizon comes about a third of the way up the composition, and the pale sky above is veiled with soft white clouds. The painting is signed in orange letters in the lower left corner, “COROT,” and dated in the lower right, “JANVIER 1866.”

The Moored Boatman: Souvenir of an Italian Lake

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot

1861

Oil on canvas  Accession ID  2015.19.25

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M90
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This painting shows a tranquil river scene with a distant horizon on the left showing rolling landscapes, trees, and small brown buildings across calm water. Closest to us, on the left, clusters of trees with dark branches hang over the water, casting reflections on the water's gray surface. There appear to be two people at the edge of the water who are kneeling down, but the details are unclear. The sky is light blue with small white clouds drifting across it. The color palette includes deep greens, browns, blues, and whites, and the brushstrokes are visible, with long, thick strokes for the sky and background, and shorter, dotted ones in the trees.

Washerwomen at the Oise River near Valmondois

Charles-François Daubigny

1865

Oil on wood  Accession ID  1949.1.3

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M92
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Two groups of people face off in front of a hilly landscape in this loosely painted, vertical scene. On our left, a pale young man in a white tunic looks with eyes wide and lips parted at a group of three people on our right. The young man's right hand, on our left, is raised to stroke the head of a reddish-brown horse at his right shoulder. He stands with feet planted wide, knees bent, and he curls his left hand into a fist. Behind him, a man holds up a fluttering, light blue cape. A mottled red wall forms a backdrop to this scene on our left. The tight group gathered under a tree on our right stares back at the young man. The trio is made up of a balding, older man, a light-skinned boy also wearing a white tunic, and, closest to us, a brown-skinned woman wearing a marigold-orange shirt and a maroon-red skirt. Behind this group, a pair of pale raised arms suggests a fourth person, but the head is missing or has been painted over. The ground under the people is saffron orange. In the center of the picture, beyond the people, a group of horses stands near a green bank by a river, its surface reflecting white. The far bank is lined with white buildings. Tan and olive-green slopes rise from the opposite riverbank under a pale blue sky with cream-white clouds sweeping along the top edge of the composition. The artist signed his name in red paint in the lower right corner: “Degas.”

Alexander and Bucephalus

Edgar Degas

1861/1862

Oil on canvas  Accession ID  1997.57.1

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M90
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A shaft of sunlight illuminates a bone-white, barren tree trunk that has fallen across a stream within a dense wood in this horizontal landscape painting. The water closest to us is deep in shadow, and the surface closer to the opposite bank is a shimmering moss green. One spiraling, ash-brown tree trunk rises out of the stream to our right of center, and another hunched, gnarled trunk grows from the far bank, to our left. Tiny in scale, two dogs stand at the water’s edge between the gnarled tree and the fallen trunk beyond. The dirt earth where the tree had stood is sand-colored, and it is surrounded with pea and pine-green grass and growth. Nearly lost in shadow, to our right, three men gather just beyond the fallen tree. Two ride donkeys while the third strides toward them with his rifle resting on his shoulder, leading another donkey. All three men wear dark jackets and trousers and tan-colored hats. A fourth man rides a donkey into the scene from the right side. Just above his head, slivers of blue water and a pale pink sky peek through the tree trunks. A fifth donkey faces us from our side of the fallen tree and a third dog runs toward the water. The impenetrable forest reaches off the top edge of the painting, the trees painted in hunter, olive, and sage green. Many of the tree trunks are wrapped with vines.

Departure for the Hunt in the Pontine Marshes

Horace Vernet

1833

Oil on canvas  Accession ID  2004.38.1

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M93
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