Provenance

French & Company LLC

active 1940s

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A wooden, T-shaped cross, with a man nailed to its crossbeam, is raised so it stands vertically as men and women look on against a grassy, hilly landscape in this horizonal painting. The painting is made up of three parts: a vertical rectangular panel at the center and a tall, narrow rectangular panel to each side. The people all have pale, ruddy, or tanned skin. The cross is being pushed up from behind by two men with poles and pulled up on the front side by three men pulling on two ropes. The man on the cross, Jesus, is nude except for a white cloth across his hips. Blood trickles from nails holding his hands in place, the single nail driven through both feet, and a ring of thorns across his forehead. His long brown hair hangs down over his shoulder, and he has a full, trimmed beard. His red-rimmed eyes slope downward as he looks down to the crowd below. His mouth is closed. The people in the crowd at the base of the cross wear dresses, robes, and turbans in shades of ruby red, grass green, lapis blue, pale yellow, carnation pink, and bright white. Three men push and pull on the base of the cross, driving it into a hole dug in the dirt ground. Eleven men and one child look on from our left, some with gaping mouths. One of the two men pulling on one of the ropes to our right wears tattered blue clothing, and his toes poke out of the shoe we can see. The other man there is barefoot and has a prominent hooked, red nose and a pointed beard. A red cowl covers his head over a tunic striped with lemon yellow and brown. An inscription on that man’s sleeve reads, “OHAIR.” Two men stand in the lower left corner of this panel. One looks at the cross and the other looks out at us, while pointing up to Jesus. Two human skulls and other bones litter the ground around the cross. Two more wooden crosses and some rope lie on the ground near us. Two dogs romp together nearby, next to a coat of arms showing a crowned man wearing a red robe and holding two pointed staffs. In the panel to our left, a woman wearing an azure-blue robe, Mary, interlaces her fingers and flips her hands palm-down, as she looks at the ground. Another woman in front of her kneels and holds her interlaced hands up by her face, elbows high. A woman and a cleanshaven man stand near Mary, and to our left, a woman wearing emerald green holds a cloth with Jesus’s face on it. Four more men and women look on, the women crying. In the panel to our right, a man in a red robe and a man wearing armor sit on horses. The armored man gestures up at Jesus. Two more men sit on horses behind this pair, and six stand among and in front of the group. Two men sit, one with his hands tied behind his back, near the lower right corner of this panel. The bound man is bald and looks down. The man behind him has a brown beard and hair, and looks up at Jesus. Across all three panels, the scene takes place on a smooth, dirt ground. Grassy hills rise beyond the cross to higher peaks in the left and right panels. Paths or roads wind into the distance to a town on the horizon, which comes about two-thirds of the way up the composition. Hazy in the distance, a city wall encloses steeples and buildings, and a bridge spans a body of water leading up to the city. Gray clouds begin to tumble across the sky from our right. The sky is nearly white along the horizon and deepens to watery blue along the top edges of the panels.
Master of the Starck Triptych, The Raising of the Cross [center, left, and right panels], c. 1480/1490, oil on panel, Patrons' Permanent Fund, 1997.100.1.a

The Raising of the Cross [center, left, and right panels]

Master of the Starck Triptych · c. 1480/1490 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  1997.100.1.a

Kashan 16th Century, Silk Medallion Rug, late 16th century, silk pile on silk warp and weft, Widener Collection, 1942.9.478

Silk Medallion Rug

Kashan 16th Century · late 16th century · silk pile on silk warp and weft ·  Accession ID  1942.9.478

Netherlandish 16th Century, The Four Cardinal Virtues: Prudence, c. 1550/1600, undyed wool warp, dyed wool and dyed silk, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection, 1970.20.5.a

The Four Cardinal Virtues: Prudence

Netherlandish 16th Century · c. 1550/1600 · undyed wool warp, dyed wool and dyed silk ·  Accession ID  1970.20.5.a

Tyrolean 15th Century, Portrait of a Man, c. 1490/1500, oil on panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1952.5.71

Portrait of a Man

Tyrolean 15th Century · c. 1490/1500 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  1952.5.71

Venetian 17th Century, Tiziano Aspetti, Andiron with Figure of Venus, c. 1600/1675, bronze, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1961.9.101

Andiron with Figure of Venus

Venetian 17th Century, Tiziano Aspetti · c. 1600/1675 · bronze ·  Accession ID  1961.9.101

Three tall sailing ships, each with three masts and full sails, float in calm, arctic waters, surrounded by fragments of icebergs and ice floes amid a smattering of arctic animals in this horizontal landscape painting. The horizon line comes about a quarter of the way up the composition so the sails and rigging of the ships are shown against the sky. The clouds have ivory tops and lavender-purple undersides, and they curve in a C-shaped bank to cover most of the left half of the painting and to span the horizon. The three ships closest to us are spaced evenly across the composition, with the left-most the closest, and therefore the largest. The ship to our right is set a bit farther back, and the center ship is the farthest away. A rowboat holding several men has pulled alongside the boat to our left, and more men haul massive slabs of whale blubber up the side of the ship. Others walk on an ice floe nearby. Close inspection reveals more rowboats around and beyond these ships, and several more ships fading into the hazy distance along the horizon. Jagged edged chunks of icebergs as tall as the ships float around them. Closer to us, a trio of seals sits on an ice floe near the lower center of the composition, and a polar bear stands nose to nose with a cub to our right. Two narwhal whales with long tusks break the surface of the water between us and the ships, as does a whale’s tail near the boat to our right. Two walruses with long tusks sit on a floe near the center ship. A couple dozen birds, many white with black wing tips, fly low over the surface of the water across the painting.
John Ward of Hull, The Northern Whale Fishery: The "Swan" and "Isabella", c. 1840, oil on canvas, The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund, 2007.114.1

The Northern Whale Fishery: The "Swan" and "Isabella"

John Ward of Hull · c. 1840 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  2007.114.1

Pieter Pannemaker I, The Crucifixion, c. 1520, tapestry: undyed wool warp; spun silver, silver-gilt, and dyed silk and wool weft, Widener Collection, 1942.9.448

The Crucifixion

Pieter Pannemaker I · c. 1520 · tapestry: undyed wool warp; spun silver, silver-gilt, and dyed silk and wool weft ·  Accession ID  1942.9.448

Master of the Starck Triptych, Saint Catherine [right wing exterior], c. 1480/1490, oil on panel, Patrons' Permanent Fund, 1997.100.1.b

Saint Catherine [right wing exterior]

Master of the Starck Triptych · c. 1480/1490 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  1997.100.1.b

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Wall-Light (bras de lumière)

French 19th Century, French 20th Century · probably 19th or early 20th century · gilded bronze ·  Accession ID  1957.7.19

A woman wearing a breastplate and helmet over a toga stands to our left on a platform, gesturing with one arm extended to a group of about a dozen soldiers gathered around her in this horizontal painting. The woman has pale white skin and most of the soldiers have ruddy complexions. The woman stands with her body facing us but she turns her head to our right, looking toward but not at the knot of soldiers clustered there. She leans on her right elbow, on our left, resting on the flat top of a broken column, and she holds a scepter in that hand. Her other arm is raised and her fingers are extended except for the index finger and thumb, which touch to make a circle. Her gold helmet is encrusted with gems and a white plume issues from the top. Her red and gold cloak is fastened around her neck and falls open to reveal her armor and sandal-clad feet. A shield rests on the platform near her feet, and other pieces of armor are scattered on the dirt ground near the platform. A young boy with chestnut-brown curls holds her cloak behind her and to our right. In the lower left corner of the painting, one soldier sits on the edge of the platform, and he twists and looks up at the woman. Several soldiers standing in a group to our right carry shields, banners, and halberds, which are tall, ax-like weapons. The men wear helmets and breastplates, and cloaks in canary yellow, crimson red, and ivory white. The man closest to us stands with his back to us, and he looks over his shoulder at the woman. An animal skin wraps around his shoulders and the head of the animal drapes over his head. More soldiers and tents in the middle distance are painted in almost monochromatic tones of peanut brown and taupe. The sky above is blue with a few white clouds, except for a band of soft yellow along the horizon.
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Queen Zenobia Addressing Her Soldiers, 1725/1730, oil on canvas, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1961.9.42

Queen Zenobia Addressing Her Soldiers

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo · 1725/1730 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1961.9.42