French Paintings

On View: West Building, Main Floor

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110 artworks on view.

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Fed by two waterfalls, an olive-green stream with foamy whitewater spills toward us, cascading over rocks and boulders in this vertical painting. Sunlight cuts across the sheer, rust and caramel-brown cliffs that fill the composition beyond the waterfalls, throwing the area closest to us in shadow. The stream is fed by a tall, thin waterfall to our left and a wider, lower waterfall to our right. One dark rock pokes out of the pool at the foot of the waterfalls. Tumbling forward over a broad, horizontal ledge about a third of the way up from the bottom, the stream breaks over massive rocks into fan-shaped cascades. The rushing white water is painted with choppy brushstrokes. Dark green shrubs are tucked into the corners and crevices of the cliffs and rocks.

View of the Waterfalls at Tivoli

Jean Joseph Xavier Bidauld

1788

Oil on paper on canvas  Accession ID  2005.140.1

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M91
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Slender tree trunks and branches reach across a waterfall framed by verdant green banks in this horizontal landscape painting. Boulders line most of the bottom edge of the composition except the lower left corner, which is taken over by plants. The arms of the tree or trees beyond this clump reach to the right in a loose web. Water crashes down a short waterfall also lined by boulders beyond, and the rest of the picture is filled with bright green foliage.

Forest Interior with a Waterfall, Papigno

André Giroux

1825/1830

Oil on paper  Accession ID  1994.52.4

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M92
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This painting shows a young woman lying on her stomach on a brown, rocky surface near the water's edge, looking towards the sea. The woman's bare feet are towards the bottom left corner of the painting, while her head is in the center, resting on her hand. She faces the right, and we see her back and side. She wears a pale green shirt with blue sleeves, a brown skirt, and a white cloth on her head. There is a red cloth on the ground next to her, as well as a pointed wooden stick that appears to be covered in white strips of cloth or feathers. The ground below her on the right is a tan, sandy color, and behind her is the sea, which is painted in vibrant turquoise and green shades, with white lines capping small waves. The sky is light blue with puffy white clouds, and distant landforms are visible in light gray across the water.

The Cliff (La Falaise)

Jules Breton

1874

Oil on canvas  Accession ID  2024.146.1

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M93
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We look across an ochre-yellow field to a band of pearl-white buildings under an azure-blue sky in this horizontal landscape painting. Flecks of red in the lower right corner could be flowers. Some of the buildings have tan or silvery-gray roofs, and the faces are in blue shadow. The horizon comes about halfway up the composition, and a few round white clouds trundle across the vivid blue sky. The scene is painted with visible, textured brushstrokes throughout. The artist signed the lower left corner, “ODILON REDON.”

Breton Village

Odilon Redon

c. 1890

Oil on canvas  Accession ID  1994.59.11

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M91
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We look across the tops of trees down onto the roofs of a cluster of buildings and then a grassy expanse, a body of water, and rolling hills in this notably wide landscape painting. The trees are painted with shades of pine and olive green. At the center of the composition, the roofs are muted terracotta red with white chimneys except for the farthest structure, which has a gray roof around a lantern, perhaps indicating a church. Smoke puffs out of one chimney there. Trees with round canopies dot the pale, grassy field beyond that, which leads back to rows of tall, dark green cypress trees. A ribbon of ice blue across the left third of the painting indicates a body of water before russet-brown and muted sage-green hills roll into the deep, hazy distance. The horizon comes about two-thirds of the way up the painting, and glimpses of pale blue sky are visible through breaks in a blanket of pale gray and cream-white clouds above.

Panoramic Landscape near the River Moselle

Théodore Rousseau

c. 1830

Oil on canvas  Accession ID  2003.40.1

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M91
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We look out over a patchwork of cultivated fields that slope down to our right and back to an ice-blue lake in this nearly square landscape painting. Rectangular fields fill the lower half of the composition in fern green, caramel brown, and golden tan. Sage-colored trees and bushes with dark brown trunks and branches separate the strip of grassy earth closest to us from the fields just beyond, and are scattered like tufts through the landscape. A rocky, slate-gray mountain brushed with lime-green trees that rises along the left edge of the canvas curves around a wedge of the arctic-blue lake. A few wispy cream-white clouds line the horizon, which comes about halfway up the composition.

Swiss Landscape

Alexandre Calame

c. 1830

Oil on paper on canvas  Accession ID  2003.41.1

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M91
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This painting shows ancient ruins made of reddish-brown stone. In front of these dilapidated walls are lines of tan and gray columns and free-standing arches. The brown ground is littered with cream-colored stones. In the background, there are rolling gray hills and distant mountains under a blue sky with fluffy white clouds.

The Forum at Pompeii

Achille-Etna Michallon

1819

Oil on paper  Accession ID  2020.15.1

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M91
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This painting shows a view of tall white cliffs on the left and right descending towards the vibrant blue sea. Small ships dot the water below. Two people towards the bottom of the painting look out across the cliffs with their backs to us. They are surrounded by gray rocks covered with light green grass, and there is a cluster of green trees in front of them. One person wears a dress and a shawl over their head, while the other wears a wide-brimmed yellow hat and appears to be holding a book or piece of paper.

View of Sommerspiret, the Cliffs of Møn

Georg Emil Libert

1846

Oil on canvas, mounted on board  Accession ID  2015.21.1

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M91
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This painting shows a woodland scene with dense trees on the right side, their white and brown trunks twisting upwards and their leaves in shades of dark green, yellow ochre, and rusty orange. In the bottom left corner, a small reflective body of water is visible behind dark stones nearby. Behind the water is a low green meadow with tall grass, and in the distance there are more tall trees and some white buildings with red roofs. The horizon is visible on the left, separating the ground from the blue sky. There are bright white clouds near the horizon, but in the upper left corner are dark gray clouds.

The Edge of the Forest at Les Monts-Girard, Fontainebleau

Narcisse Diaz de la Peña

1868

Oil on canvas  Accession ID  2000.37.1

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M93
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A bare-chested, blond woman sits sideways on a muscular, large, white bull, who charges into an ocean while three women look on in this horizontal painting. All the people have pale or peachy skin and rosy cheeks. The bull is being pulled to our left by a winged, nude, baby-like putto wading into the water. The putto has pudgy arms, a round tummy, and short, blond, curly hair. He looks back over his shoulder and smiles as he reaches along a garland of leaves and flowers, used to pull the bull. The bull turns his head to look over our left shoulder with bright, golden eyes. His front legs plunge into the azure-blue water. Rings of flowers encircle his short, steel-gray horns. The woman riding atop, Europa, leans across the bull’s neck and one hand clutches one of the bull’s horns. She looks and gestures with her other hand to the group behind the bull, to our right. Europa’s blond hair is woven with a deep pink ribbon. Her eyes are slitted as she looks down her nose, her pink lips open. Pale, shimmering yellow fabric covers her legs over sandaled feet. She sits on a rose-pink cloth that also billows up behind her. She wears two pearl bracelets on her gesturing hand. The three women looking on sit and stand near a tree trunk in a dense wooded area in the lower right quadrant of the painting. Their mouths are open, their hair bound, and they wear flowing robes of bronze orange, royal blue, lavender gray, or pale mint green. One woman has dark brown hair and sits with one elbow propped on a tree root. Her hands are clasped and she wears gold bracelets. Another woman leans across her lap, her arms outstretched toward Europa, her back to us. The third woman stands and leans in behind this pair, also reaching out toward Europa. A deeply shaded rocky ground stretches across the bottom of the canvas, and a leafy tree extends off the top right corner. Dense vegetation becomes lighter and hazier in the distance, to our right. A bright dot of cream white surrounded by coral peach on the ocean’s horizon suggests the sun. In the top half of the picture, towering puffy clouds rise against a topaz-blue sky.

The Abduction of Europa

Jean François de Troy

1716

Oil on canvas  Accession ID  2010.115.1

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M54
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Moonlight falls across several masted ships near a rocky shoreline in this horizontal painting. The sky fills the top three-quarters of the picture. A veil of slate-gray clouds is lit to pearl white around the crisp, full moon at the center of the composition. Patches of denim-blue sky are seen through breaks in the blanket of clouds. Moonlight reflects down the center of rippling, silvery-gray water that laps against a beach close to us, along the bottom edge of the painting. A tent is set up in the lower left corner of the composition. There, two women and one man stand looking at a glowing fire next to the tent. One woman holds a basket on her head, the other tucks a flat basket under one arm. The man stands between the two women, and a fourth man crouches near the fire, his back to us. In the opening of the tent, another woman kneels over a large bowl as she looks at the fire. A fifth person, a man, gazes at the fire as he sits smoking a long-stemmed pipe on a boulder. At the foot of the boulders, a man lies back against some bundles, one arm thrown up over his head. A dog curls up next to his hip. Not far from the sleeping man and in the center of the foreground, a man carries several long wooden objects, possibly oars, over one shoulder while a dog beyond him barks at the lapping surf. The beach curves like a C away from us, along the left. At the point of the curve in the middle distance, a structure like a city wall and gate jut out to the water’s edge. More buildings atop steep cliffs rise vertically beyond the gate. The shoreline curves into the distance again, and more buildings, including a lighthouse, and masted ships there are smoke-gray silhouettes. Near the lower right corner of the painting, four men pull on ropes tied around the prow of a small wooden boat while three others push it toward the land. Another man stands in the far end. A short distance beyond that boat is a tall wooden ship with three masts and rigging outlined against the night sky. Windows along the decks of that boat’s wide stern, angled toward us, glow with golden light. Beyond it and a bit to our left, another ship, smaller in scale, sails away from us. Several more ships move back to the horizon until we only see strokes of white and gray to indicate their unfurled sails.

Moonlight

Claude-Joseph Vernet

1772

Oil on canvas  Accession ID  2018.13.1

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M55
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Steep, rocky cliffs span the right two-thirds of this horizontal painting in front of a distant landscape to the left. A brown stone fortress or castle, with crenellated walls and few visible windows, is built at the edge of the cliff at the center of the image. To the right and higher up on the hill are more reddish-brown stone ruins with tall, narrow towers, also partially overgrown with vegetation. Closer to us and in the bottom right corner of the painting, a person with light skin wearing a brimmed hat and tan and brown clothing stands among several goats and looks out to the left. Some goats graze or stand on the rocky path near the person, while others are scattered farther across the sloping, grassy terrain. The rocky hillside is dotted with patches of green vegetation and shrubs. The base of the cliffs fade in the near distance and beyond them is a wide, hazy valley or plain under a blue sky filled with soft, white clouds. Streaks over mountains along the horizon, which comes halfway up the composition, suggest distant rain. A black mark in the lower right corner could be the artist’s initials, JS, conjoined as a monogram.

View of the Castello di San Giuliano, near Trapani, Sicily

Louise-Joséphine Sarazin de Belmont

c. 1824/1826

Oil on canvas  Accession ID  2004.166.34

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M91
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