Provenance

Julius Böhler

German, est. 1880

Explore selected works

See all 29 works of art
Three apples and two pears sit next to a knife and a luminous, white mug on a tan, stone surface before a muted, olive-green background in this horizontal still life painting. The objects and background are painted with blended strokes, giving the painting a soft, glowing appearance. At the center of the ledge or table, the apples are dappled with candy red and pale yellow. Two golden and moss-green pears are to our left, one upright and the other lying with its stem coming toward us. The fruit is painted with white highlights from a light source to our left. The cream-white mug sits next to the apples to our right. The mug has straight sides, a low band near the top and bottom, and the handle curves out to our right. Between the apples and mug, the black handle of a knife angles to our right, off the edge of the table. Shadows are painted in brick red on the surface of the table, which extends off both sides of the canvas. There is a vertical seam in the table under the upright pear.
Jean Siméon Chardin, Still Life with a White Mug, c. 1764, oil on canvas, Gift of the W. Averell Harriman Foundation in memory of Marie N. Harriman, 1972.9.6

Still Life with a White Mug

Jean Siméon Chardin · c. 1764 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1972.9.6

Adolph Menzel, The Artist's Sister Emilie, 1851, pastel and black chalk on brown wove paper, Wolfgang Ratjen Collection, Purchased as the Gift of Ladislaus and Beatrix von Hoffmann, 2007.111.19

The Artist's Sister Emilie

Adolph Menzel · 1851 · pastel and black chalk on brown wove paper ·  Accession ID  2007.111.19

Shown from the hips up, a woman to our left wears a sapphire-blue robe over a petal-pink dress, and she supports a pudgy, nude infant to our right in this vertical painting. Both have marble-white skin faintly tinged with green, wavy blond hair, and shiny gold halos. Their heads tilt toward each other so the woman’s cheek brushes the top of the baby’s head. She holds his body with one hand nearly flat against his torso and the other, covered with her robe, bracing his back. The baby holds the pinky of her hand against his chest with his left hand, on our right, and wraps his other arm around her heck. The woman looks down to our right with olive-green eyes under faint brows. She has a delicate nose and her pale, pink lips are parted. Her hair is covered by a sheer white cloth that falls over the shoulders of her blue robe, which is lined with golden yellow where it turns back around her neck. Her pink dress is trimmed with a band of moss green along the curving, sweetheart neckline and around the cuffs of her sleeves, and is ornamented with pearls and red, white, and blue orbs, possibly jewels. The baby looks at or toward us, his pink lips also parted and his rounded cheeks slightly blushed. He stands on his left foot, to our right, and raises his other foot, knee bent. Stylized white and pink roses with mint-green stems and leaves grow up against a royal-blue background behind the pair.
Domenico Veneziano, Madonna and Child, c. 1445/1450, tempera on poplar panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1939.1.221

Madonna and Child

Domenico Veneziano · c. 1445/1450 · tempera on poplar panel ·  Accession ID  1939.1.221

A nude man holding a book in one hand and a rock down by his other side kneels at the opening of a rocky cave in this vertical painting. The man’s body and the shadowy cave opening nearly fill the composition. The man’s torso and limbs are elongated and sinewy, and his skin is painted in tones of ivory white and pale peach with smoky gray shadows. His body is squared to us as he turns his long face to look up and off to our left. He has dark brows over deep-set eyes, a prominent nose, hollow cheeks, and his thin lips are closed. He has short white hair and a frost-white beard. His skin pulls tightly over the tendons in his neck, across his collarbone, and over his ladder-like ribcage. He is nude except for a loosely painted, light-colored cloth across his hips. His left arm, to our right, lies along an open book, which rests against his hip or on a rock in the cave. A few touches of red line the hand that grips the rock, which he holds away from his body with his other hand. The craggy face of the cave opening is loosely painted, and the interior is swallowed in complete darkness. The man raises his face toward rays of canary yellow and cotton white against a turquoise-blue sky in the upper left corner of the canvas.
El Greco, Saint Jerome, c. 1610/1614, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1943.7.6

Saint Jerome

El Greco · c. 1610/1614 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1943.7.6

Bernard van Orley, The Marriage of the Virgin, c. 1513, oil on panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1952.5.48

The Marriage of the Virgin

Bernard van Orley · c. 1513 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  1952.5.48

Shown from the waist up, a woman wearing a garnet-red robe rests a book and a palm frond against a spiked wheel, all against a gold background in this arched, vertical painting. The woman’s light skin is tinged with pale green, and her cheeks are faint pink. Her shoulders face us, and she slightly looks up and off to our right with gray eyes under curved brows. She has a long, straight nose, and her small, full, bow-shaped lips are closed. Her wavy blond hair is parted down the middle and pulled back at the base of her head. Her red robe has a pattern of delicate diamond shapes and the underside is white, visible where it turns over around the neck. The robe is fastened with a round, gold disk the size of a DVD. Letters there read, “S.K.A.T.E.R.I.N.A.” around the perimeter of a four-lobed, red, blue, and gold geometric design at the center of the brooch. The sky-blue garment beneath her robe has a marine-blue collar. She clasps the palm frond in her left hand, to our right. The hand rests on the book, which is propped against the wheel in front of her, so the frond reaches beyond and above that shoulder, nearly to the edge of the painting. The wheel is edged with short, curving spikes like talons. The woman’s gold crown and round halo blend into the shimmering gold background, which is visibly cracked in some areas. The top of the panel curves up as if into an arch but is cut across the panel over her halo.
Bartolomeo Bulgarini, Saint Catherine of Alexandria, c. 1335/1340, tempera on panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1943.4.20

Saint Catherine of Alexandria

Bartolomeo Bulgarini · c. 1335/1340 · tempera on panel ·  Accession ID  1943.4.20

Rodolphe Bresdin, Landscape, probably c. 1858, pen and ink on tracing paper, Andrew W. Mellon Fund, 1976.81.1

Landscape

Rodolphe Bresdin · probably c. 1858 · pen and ink on tracing paper ·  Accession ID  1976.81.1

Hubert Robert, Italian Park with a Tempietto, 1763, red chalk on laid paper; laid down, Gift of Mrs. John A. Pope, in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of the National Gallery of Art, 1991.222.1

Italian Park with a Tempietto

Hubert Robert · 1763 · red chalk on laid paper; laid down ·  Accession ID  1991.222.1

Shown from the waist up behind a stone ledge, a young woman nestles a nude baby against her chest in this vertical painting. Both have pale skin with a slight, rosy blush on their cheeks, and both have halos painted as delicate gold rings around their heads. The woman’s shoulders are angled to our left, and she looks down at the baby in that direction with hooded eyes. She has a slender face, a long, straight nose, smooth cheeks, and her pale pink lips are closed. The neckline and the cuffs of her garnet-red, gold-edged gown peek out from beneath a dark, spruce-blue mantle that covers her head and wraps around her body. She rests the baby along the stone ledge and holds him in the crook of her right elbow, to our left. In her other hand, she holds a small object, perhaps an apple. The baby also touches the fruit as he lies back along her arm. He has curly, ash-blond hair, a petite nose, and chubby cheeks. He looks up at the woman or beyond her with parted, downturned lips. The pair are warmly lit from the upper left and set against a fern and olive-green landscape. Near the left edge of the painting, a church and steeple are silhouetted along the horizon, which comes just under halfway up the composition. In the sky above, a clear, pale blue horizon gives way first to puffy, cream-white clouds and then swirling clouds in tones of pine green and slate gray along the top of the picture. An inscription appears on the lower center of the ledge, “IDEM Z.B.”
Giovanni Bellini, Madonna and Child in a Landscape, c. 1480/1485, oil on panel, Ralph and Mary Booth Collection, 1946.19.1

Madonna and Child in a Landscape

Giovanni Bellini · c. 1480/1485 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  1946.19.1

A nude woman with pale, rosy skin lies across a grassy field in front of a pool fed by water from a rocky outcropping, with a town in the distance in this horizontal painting. The woman lies back against a scarlet-red garment, presumably a dress, bunched under her shoulders, with her head to our left. Her face turns to us, but she cuts her eyes to our right, her lids nearly closed. She has a wide face, a pointed chin, and her thin, rose-pink lips are closed. Her blond hair is pulled back and gossamer fabric, nearly invisible, creates a veil reaching her arched eyebrows. She rests her head against her raised right arm, closest to the grass on which she lies, and her other arm rests along the side of her body. Her ankles are together but her knees fall slightly apart. More sheer fabric wraps across her hips. She wears a black cord tied in a bow around her neck and a longer, thick, gold chain necklace with a pendant with a ruby-red stone and pearls. On her left hand, along her body, she wears a crimson-red and gold, jeweled bracelet and three gold rings with red and blue jewels on her thumb, pointer, and pinkie fingers. The grass beneath her is painted with emerald-green plants and leaves against a dark, forest-green background. Two partridges walk in the grass, one pecking at the ground, near the lower right corner of the composition. An ash-gray tree trunk spans the height of the painting near the birds, and a bow and garnet-red, long, box-like quiver of arrows hang from a branch. Beyond the band of grass, to our left, is a pool being fed from a stream of water coming from the rocky, cave-like opening above. The pool is lined with more dark green trees and bushes. In the distance, to our right, is a town with slate-gray buildings with burgundy-red roofs. The sky above deepens from pale, sunshine yellow along the horizon to shell pink to watery blue. A rectangular plaque in the upper left corner reads, “FONTIS NYMPHA SACRI SOM NVM NE RVMP QVIESCO.” On the rock face of the cave nearby is a tiny silhouette of a serpent with folded wings holding a ring in its mouth.
Lucas Cranach the Elder, The Nymph of the Spring, after 1537, oil on panel, Gift of Clarence Y. Palitz, 1957.12.1

The Nymph of the Spring

Lucas Cranach the Elder · after 1537 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  1957.12.1