Mr. and Mrs. Richard Selle

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In this vertical portrait painting, a pale-skinned, bearded man holding a painter’s palette and brushes stands in front of a painting on an easel that shows a chubby child and a slender dog. The man stands in the lower right quadrant of the composition, close to us. Shown from the waist up, his body faces our left in profile, and he turns to look at us. His forehead is lined, and his left eye, to our right, turns in a bit toward his nose. His shoulder-length, wavy, ash-blond hair gleams. His brushy mustache flips up at the ends over closed pink lips, and he has a narrow strip of a beard on the hint of a double chin. He wears a black garment with a wide white collar, and white fabric peeks through a slit in the sleeve we can see. He holds the palette and five thin brushes in the hand closer to us and a sixth brush in his other hand. The palette is dotted with white, light brown, burnt orange, and black smears of paint. The painting within the painting takes up most of the composition, but a sliver of the easel’s legs and the top brace are visible along the upper and lower edges of the composition. The painting within shows a nude, small boy with pale, peachy skin. His blond hair curls onto his forehead and around his ears. He stands with one knee leaning against a rock to our right. He holds a small bow close to his body in his left hand, on our right, with a quiver of arrows slung across his chest. His right hand extends to our left to hook a finger into the collar of a sleek, light-brown dog that lies alongside him. The dog’s chest faces our left, but the head, with a long, narrow muzzle, turns back to gaze at the child. Near the dog’s front feet and the child’s standing foot is a square, light tan stone slab. The top surface is carved with a snake swallowing its tail. A dark brown rocky outcropping rises along the right side of the painting within the painting. Gray clouds skim across a vibrant blue sky above the dog and boy.
Guercino, Self-Portrait before a Painting of "Amor Fedele", 1655, oil on canvas, Patrons' Permanent Fund, 2005.13.1

Self-Portrait before a Painting of "Amor Fedele"

Guercino · 1655 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  2005.13.1

Otto Dix, Young Family (Lovers) (Junge Familie [Liebespaar]), 1918, pen and brush and black ink on brown wove paper, Gift of Richard A. Simms and Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, 1995.34.1

Young Family (Lovers) (Junge Familie [Liebespaar])

Otto Dix · 1918 · pen and brush and black ink on brown wove paper ·  Accession ID  1995.34.1

Philibert d'Amiens de Ranchicourt, A Fashionable Couple Seen from Behind, c. 1810, black and white chalk on yellow paper, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, 2001.15.1

A Fashionable Couple Seen from Behind

Philibert d'Amiens de Ranchicourt · c. 1810 · black and white chalk on yellow paper ·  Accession ID  2001.15.1