Provenance

Edmée Busch Reisinger

died 1955

Explore Selected Works

The head and shoulders of a young woman with gold-tinted, pale skin looks out over our right shoulder from against a tomato-red background in this vertical painting. The portrait is created with mostly visible, sinuous brushstrokes that make some details indistinct. With her body facing us, the woman nearly fills this composition. She looks in our direction with large, dark eyes under almost flat brows. She has an oval face, a long nose, and her full, slightly downturned coral-red lips are closed. Her chestnut-brown hair falls loosely down her back. Some locks pour over her left shoulder, to our right, and her hair is tucked behind her other ear. Her hair and clothing are especially loosely painted, so it is difficult to make out what she wears. An area of beige could be a scarf draped around her neck and down her front, or a dark, coffee-brown cloak could be open over a lighter garment beneath. The red background is painted with long, visible brushstrokes, and three dark brown spots are clustered against the background over her right shoulder, to our left.
James McNeill Whistler, Alice Butt, c. 1895, oil on canvas, Gift of Curt H. Reisinger, 1948.16.2

Alice Butt

James McNeill Whistler · c. 1895 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1948.16.2

Two pale-skinned girls stand hand in hand in a grassy field in this vertical painting. To our left, the younger girl is about two heads shorter than her companion and holds a doll clutched in the crook of her right arm. She has short, light blond hair, and she stares at us or just above our heads with wide, blue eyes. She has round cheeks, and her rosebud-shaped mouth is parted. She wears a moss-green skirt patterned with lilac-purple flowers, a tan sash around her waist, and a shirt with violet-purple and navy-blue, vertical stripes on the torso and elbow-length white sleeves. One calf-high boot slouches down and the other brushes the bottom of her flaring skirts. Her doll wears a grayish-blue dress with a brown hem and fog-gray stockings. The taller girl on our right holds the smaller girl’s hand and turns to look down at her. Her cheeks are rosy, and her flaxen yellow hair falls nearly to her shoulders. She wears a vivid, apricot-orange dress with elbow-length sleeves, a light blue kerchief tied in a bow around her neck, and dark brown stockings and shoes. The girls stand close to each other and us in front of a grassy field dotted with blue, yellow, and white flowers. Two white goats graze in the distance behind the smaller girl. Reddish brown roofs suggest that houses nestle into a dip beyond the meadow. Smoke curls from a couple chimneys. The horizon nearly reaches the top edge of the painting so only a sliver of silvery gray sky lines the top of the composition. The artist signed the bottom right corner: “Gari Melchers.”
Gari Melchers, The Sisters, c. 1895, oil on canvas, Gift of Curt H. Reisinger, 1957.4.2

The Sisters

Gari Melchers · c. 1895 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1957.4.2

A woman with pale skin and dark brown hair is swathed in silky fabric as she reclines along a gray couch in this horizontal painting. Her head rests along the backrest of the sofa to our left, so her body extends to our right. Her torso is wrapped in a voluminous, ivory-white scarf or wrap. The scarf wraps tightly around her neck, and the bottom edge, near her knees, has a wide, indigo-blue pattern of ovals and vegetal forms. Her shimmering silver gray skirt is painted loosely with baby and sky blue, olive and sage green, and white strokes, and it drapes over the cushions and down the front of the couch. Her hands are clasped so her interwoven fingers rest at her navel. She looks down and off to our right. A table to our left is edged with gold. The wall behind her, above the couch, is painted with long streaks of eggshell white and pale turquoise. The gold frame of a dark painting hanging over the couch spans the width of the composition. Near the upper right corner of the canvas, the artist included a signature and as if he had signed the painting within this painting with loose, dark letters: “John S. Sargent 1911.”
John Singer Sargent, Nonchaloir (Repose), 1911, oil on canvas, Gift of Curt H. Reisinger, 1948.16.1

Nonchaloir (Repose)

John Singer Sargent · 1911 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1948.16.1