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Sale, Paris

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Shown from the chest up, a light-skinned man with a wrinkled face and a silvery gray beard and hair gazes into the distance in this oval portrait painting. His chest is angled to our right but he turns his head to look off over his other shoulder, to our left. His slate-blue eyes are a little sunken and lined with wrinkles. Shading marks the hollows of the temple and cheek we can see. His thin lips are closed and framed by his curly mustache and beard. A dark, mahogany-brown cap is pushed back on his head, and his brown jacket has gold-colored buttons down the front. The collar of a cream-colored shirt shows through at the neckline. The background is dark olive green. The artist signed the work near the man’s shoulder, to our right: “GDOV.”
Gerrit Dou, Bust of a Bearded Man, c. 1642/1645, oil on panel, Corcoran Collection (William A. Clark Collection), 2014.136.32

Bust of a Bearded Man

Gerrit Dou · c. 1642/1645 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  2014.136.32

Shown from the chest up, a light-skinned man wearing a burgundy-red turban faces our left in profile against a dark background in this vertical portrait painting. He looks off to the left, and the eye we can see is light brown under a faint, possibly plucked eyebrow. He has a straight nose, and his full peach-colored lips are closed. There is the suggestion of a puffy area under the eye we can see, but the rest of his skin is smooth. His brown hair is mostly tucked under his turban, and a piece of fabric hangs down the back of his neck. A band of his white undergarment is visible at the high neck of his olive-brown shirt, which appears to be pleated or striped down the front. He also wears a black jacket, which covers his shoulder and most of his chest. A brown band across the bottom edge of the painting could be a wooden railing or ledge, behind which the man is shown. Cracks are visible across the painting, especially in the deep green background.
Florentine 15th Century, Profile Portrait of a Young Man, 1430/1450, tempera on panel, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1937.1.14

Profile Portrait of a Young Man

Florentine 15th Century · 1430/1450 · tempera on panel ·  Accession ID  1937.1.14

Two pale-skinned women sit together surrounded by five sheep and a dog in a lush forest in this vertical painting. The woman to our right sits slightly above the other, with her arm draped around the shoulders of her companion. The woman to our right wears a low-cut, rose-pink dress with a full skirt and voluminous, gossamer sleeves. Blond curls are pulled back behind a headband, which is adorned over one ear with three large, pink flowers and smaller yellow and blue flowers. She tips her head to our right as she gazes down to her left at her friend. She has blue eyes, flushed cheeks, a delicate nose, and her grapefruit-pink lips curl in a gentle smile. She crosses one knee over the other and leans toward the other woman. Tucked into her side, the second woman looks up at the first in profile facing our right. Her low-cut, lavender-purple dress has a gold shimmer that suggests silk. Her ash-brown curls are pulled back and decorated with small sea-blue flowers. One toe peeks out from her long skirt, and both women are barefoot. The woman in purple holds a white dove on her friend’s lap, and the woman in pink holds a small envelope closed with a shell-pink seal next to the bird. The dove’s wings are slightly outspread, and a blue ribbon is tied around its neck. Just behind the pair, a towering tree with a silvery-gray trunk grows up and off the top edge of the painting. It angles to our left, and green branches hang down into the picture. To our right of the tree, a rectangular sand-brown stone structure is topped with a male lion carved from the same stone, near the upper right corner. The ground beneath the women is covered with moss-green growth and the space around them filled with verdant bushes and plants. A single, cream-colored sheep stands to our right, facing the women, next to a basket of flowers near the lower right corner. Four more sheep stand and lie together beyond the women to our left, while a black-bodied hound with a white muzzle sits watching the women. A pile of broken branches, perhaps forming a fence, lies behind the sheep. Grassy hills and trees become hazy in the distance beyond, and the sky above is slate blue with a few white and pale pink clouds. The upper and lower right corners and the lower left corner are deep in shade. The artist signed and dated the painting as if he had inscribed the stone in the shadow just below the lion, “f. Boucher 1750.”
François Boucher, The Love Letter, 1750, oil on canvas, Timken Collection, 1960.6.3

The Love Letter

François Boucher · 1750 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1960.6.3

Venetian 16th Century, Hand Bell with Moro Arms between Thistles (?), Stag, Eagle (?), Unicorn, and Palm Crossing Laurel, 16th century, bronze//Medium brown patina, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1957.14.115

Hand Bell with Moro Arms between Thistles (?), Stag, Eagle (?), Unicorn, and Palm Crossing Laurel

Venetian 16th Century · 16th century · bronze//Medium brown patina ·  Accession ID  1957.14.115

A light-skinned man wearing a voluminous, ocean-blue, hooded robe sits at a cloth-draped writing table and looks up, fingers splayed over an open book and a pen held in his other hand, in this vertical painting. The man and desk take up most of the composition, which has an arched top. The man’s shoulders and body are angled to our right, and he looks off in that direction in profile. His balding head is rimmed with white hair curving over the large ear we can see, and he has a trimmed white and gray beard and mustache. His prominent nose is pointed, and his lips are closed. Light glints off the robe he wears so it shimmers in shades of topaz, aquamarine, and midnight blue. Voluminous white sleeves emerge under the mantle and are edged with narrow lace cuffs. His left hand, to our right, rests on an open book, which is propped against one or two other tomes. Near the edge of the table, two quills stand in the corners of a lidded inkwell, and a round, silver blotter, shaped like an upside-down chalice, and a lidded silver box sit nearby. The man’s chair has a tall post next to his shoulder to our left with a teardrop-shaped, gold finial. A second post, near his wrist, is lower and topped with a gold orb. The chair is draped in the same deep, raspberry-pink of the square table at which he sits. The tablecloth is edged with a wide band of gold along the bottom, and filigree-like gold decorations line the seams or folds at the corners. Brushstrokes are visible in many areas, especially in the colorfully charged blue and pink fabric. Beyond the man, to our right, a statuette of a person wearing a long, white robe over a white dress holds a baby. The clothing is edged with gold, and she wears a sphere-like gold crown. The baby also wears white and holds up one hand. The statuette stands on a platform supported by S-shaped corbels, and could have a projecting, squared awning over the top. This area is more loosely painted so some details are difficult to make out. In the background to our left, a wooden door stands open next to a dark space just behind the man’s head, so his profile is picked out against the shadow. The floor beneath is earth brown.
El Greco, Saint Ildefonso, c. 1603/1614, oil on canvas, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1937.1.83

Saint Ildefonso

El Greco · c. 1603/1614 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1937.1.83

In a room filled with easels, white plaster heads and statuettes, a box of paints, books, and papers, a young woman stands looking at a sketch and a young girl looks on, seated in an armchair, in this vertical painting. The scene is lit from the upper left, presumably from a window out of our view. Both women have smooth, pale skin, and their hair is swept up with curls framing their faces. They face our right in profile so their faces are in gentle shadow. They have straight noses, and their rose-pink lips are closed. They wear gowns with short sleeves, low, scooped necks, and floor-length skirts cinched under the bust. In the center of the painting, the young woman has chestnut-brown hair and wears a white gown tied with a sky-blue ribbon. She stands in front of a portfolio propped up against a tall easel. The portfolio is made of two stiff boards that tie together with pale blue ribbon to secure large sheets of paper. She rests her right hand, closer to us, on the front board of the portfolio and looks down at the sketch on a gray piece of paper she holds with her other hand. Next to her and closer to us, the younger girl sits in a gold chair upholstered with olive-green velvet. She faces our right almost in profile, and she looks up toward the drawing the other woman holds. The girl in the chair has blond hair and a gold-colored dress. Her feet are propped on a gold footstool, and she holds another portfolio on her lap. She supports the portfolio and holds a piece of paper with one hand, and a stylus or brush in the other hand, up by her chin. To the right of the easel, a wooden table holds a collection of plaster casts of faces, a hand, and small-scale bodies along with a glass vessel and a few other tools. Two translucent green bottles, boxes, a book, and a terracotta vase are collected on the footstool and the floor around the base of the easel. Garnet-red cloths are draped down the front of the table to our right and behind the girl on the chair. Next to her chair, in the lower left corner of the composition, is a wooden box with a paint palette and a handful of thin paintbrushes. A scroll of paper lies next to the box. A shelf at the standing girl’s shoulder height and behind the pair, to our left, is piled with white busts of a man, child, and woman, more figurines, and a brush in a small cup, all arranged across a moss-green cloth. The space with the girls and artist’s tools is enclosed by a large, dark brown form, presumably a canvas in shadow, that leans against the tall easels and mostly cuts off a view into the rest of the room. A glimpse of shadowy capitals is seen over the board, across the top of the painting, to suggest that a row of columns recedes into the space beyond. The artist signed the work as if he had painted his name on the floor next to the scroll, “L. Boilly.”
Louis-Léopold Boilly, A Painter's Studio, c. 1800, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1943.7.1

A Painter's Studio

Louis-Léopold Boilly · c. 1800 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1943.7.1

Shown from the hips up, a nude woman stands between a table in front of her and a clothed man behind her, against a deep landscape in this vertical painting. The man rests one hand on her shoulder and holds up a mirror with the other. The woman’s pale skin has a pronounced golden glow. Her body faces us and she looks to our left, holding her waist-length, curly, strawberry-blond hair with her right hand by her face. Her hair on the other side is tied back with a sage-green band behind her ear. She wears a sheer white sash wrapped around her back and upper arms. A muted rose-pink, velvet sash loops over her left forearm, to our left. That hand rests on a round, squat glass bottle that sits on a leaf-green table, with her index finger covering the opening of the bottle. She wears a gold ring with a small dark stone on her left ring finger, and another gold ring rests on the table. The back corner of the table covers her genitals in the lower right corner of the painting. Behind her and to our left, a man with an olive-toned complexion and short curly brown hair, moustache, and long beard looks down his long nose at the woman as he rests his left hand, to our right, on her shoulder. He has dark eyebrows, flushed cheeks, and his pink lips are closed. He wears a cranberry-red coat embroidered along the edges with gold. White ruffles encircle his neck and the cuff we can see. Almost lost in shadow, the hilt of his sword peeks around his hip. With his right hand, to our left, he holds up a dark rectangular object in a wood-colored frame. The reflections of his fingertips in the glass indicate that this is a mirror, but the surface is otherwise black. A dense, forest-green tree grows in the landscape behind the woman. The view over the man’s shoulder, to our left, has sea-green hills beneath a watery blue sky with cream-white clouds.
Italian 15th/16th Century, Allegory of Love, c. 1520/1540, oil on canvas, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1939.1.259

Allegory of Love

Italian 15th/16th Century · c. 1520/1540 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1939.1.259

Italian 16th Century, The Heraldic Carro [reverse], c. 1500, bronze, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1957.14.898.b

The Heraldic Carro [reverse]

Italian 16th Century · c. 1500 · bronze ·  Accession ID  1957.14.898.b

André Derain, Woman in an Armchair, 1920/1925, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.72

Woman in an Armchair

André Derain · 1920/1925 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1963.10.72

The painting shows a scene from a slightly elevated angle. At the bottom are three people; two women are tending to a man who appears to have long spears or arrows in him. The three people have yellow-toned skin, and the man is mostly nude except for a red cloth draped around his waist. The women wear blue and white cloths draped around their heads and shoulders over dark dresses. One of them holds a silver bowl, and the other pulls an arrow out of the man, who sits on a white cloth. They are at the edge of a dense forest. Trees tower above them on both sides. Beyond the trees is a distant hill, and distant people on horseback are walking along the ridge, facing away from us. The sky above is pale blue. At the top of the painting, surrounded by green leaves, are two flying cherubs gilded with yellow light. They point down to the three figures below. The brushwork in the painting is loose and expressive.
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Saint Sebastian Succored by the Holy Women, 1874, oil on canvas, Timken Collection, 1960.6.4

Saint Sebastian Succored by the Holy Women

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot · 1874 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1960.6.4