Provenance

Arthur Brewster Emmons

American, 1850 - 1922

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Close to us, a woman and two men stand on a grassy riverbank looking out at the expanse of the river that nearly fills this horizontal landscape painting. A fourth person sits in a long, narrow canoe that angles from the riverbank near the lower left corner to our right, and it extends off the right edge of the canvas. The people all have pale, peachy skin. The man closest to us, to our right of the trio, wears a white hat and jacket and dark pants as he gazes across the river with his hands in his jacket pockets. The other man and woman, to our left, look toward us. The woman wears a royal-blue hat pulled low over her eyes. Her dress has a blue skirt, and her petal-pink corseted bodice is trimmed with white. The third standing person, along the left edge of the painting, wears blue and brown, and a straw-colored hat. The man in the boat wears a white long-sleeved shirt with a blue cravat at his neck, a crimson-red cummerbund at his waist, blue pants, and a brimmed, straw hat. He turns to look over his right shoulder, and he holds the end of a long oar in his right hand. The surface of the water is painted with short touches of vibrant blue paint. A sailboat, barge, and two other sculls float on the river between us and the far bank, which comes three-quarters of the way up the composition. A few white houses and buildings line the water amid tall grasses on the opposite bank on the right half of the painting. The blue sky is painted with long strokes in blue and white. The brushstrokes are loose throughout, creating a blurred, feathery texture.
Auguste Renoir, Oarsmen at Chatou, 1879, oil on canvas, Gift of Sam A. Lewisohn, 1951.5.2

Oarsmen at Chatou

Auguste Renoir · 1879 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1951.5.2

Painted almost entirely in tones of topaz, lapis, and sky blue, the façade of a building abutting a waterway fills this horizontal painting. Brushstrokes are visible throughout and they blend to make the scene appear hazy. The top two-thirds of this painting shows the front of a building with two stories of rows of pointed, arched windows. Two long, low boats, gondolas, are pulled up side-by-side to one of the arched openings at the water level of the canal, to our right. A few touches of amethyst purple and mauve pink delineate some of the architectural features and shadows amid a field of denim and pale blue. The water below is painted with short, horizontal strokes to create a shimmering effect. The building’s reflection is captured with touches of emerald and cool green against the blue water. The artist signed and dated the work with cobalt-blue paint in the lower left: “Claude Monet 1908.”
Claude Monet, Palazzo da Mula, Venice, 1908, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.182

Palazzo da Mula, Venice

Claude Monet · 1908 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1963.10.182