César Mange de Hauke

Haucke, César de

French, 1900 - 1965

Explore Selected Works

We look slightly down and across a stage, as if from the wings, at a ballet performance with ballerinas to our left and the audience to our right in this vertical print. The artist has added strokes in pastel in some areas, as for the dancers’ pink tights and pointed toe shoes. The whole scene is loosely rendered, either with pastel or in the monotype print on which the artist drew. There are at least three ballerinas lined up in a row moving away from us, along the left edge of the paper. Their dark hair is pulled up and, for the woman farthest from us, two pink flowers adorn her hair. They wear costumes with silvery-white bodices and flaring, knee-length tutus. An area streaked with pine green and brown in the upper left corner could be a curtain behind the dancers, and people wearing black watch from red box seats across the stage from us. The surface of the stage itself is a blend of charcoal gray and rose pink, and the edge is lined with white to our right. The audience is a made up of a few peach dots within strokes and smudges of black. More gold and brick-red box seats fill the wall opposite us. There is a black silhouette along the right edge of the paper, with a bulge near the bottom right corner perhaps indicating the shoulder of an onlooker from the wings, next to us. The artist signed the work with vibrant blue near the lower right corner, “degas.”
Edgar Degas, Dancers at the Old Opera House, c. 1877, pastel over monotype on laid paper, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection, 1970.17.26

Dancers at the Old Opera House

Edgar Degas · c. 1877 · pastel over monotype on laid paper ·  Accession ID  1970.17.26

Auguste Renoir, Young Woman Standing, c. 1880, black chalk on wove paper, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection, 1970.17.168

Young Woman Standing

Auguste Renoir · c. 1880 · black chalk on wove paper ·  Accession ID  1970.17.168

Shown from the lap up, a cleanshaven man with black hair and dark clothes faces us as he sits with his hands resting together in his lap in this stylized, vertical portrait painting. The man's features, clothing, and the room are painted with areas of mottled color with visible brushstrokes, so many details are indistinct. The man has peach-colored skin, and his facial features are outlined. He has dark eyes that look at us or slightly up, under thin, arched brows. One eye is a little higher than the other, and the two halves of his long face do not quite match. He has a wide nose, and his full, dark rose-pink lips are closed. His hair is parted down the middle and is brushed down to meet his ears. He has an elongated neck, and his narrow shoulders slope down. He wears black pants and a black coat over a dark teal-green vest. A white shirt is visible along his neckline, and an area of black could be the knot of a tie. He holds the fingers of one hand in his other, both hands resting in his lap. A loosely painted, brown table sits next to the man to our right, and an area of slate blue and white could be a glass on the table. A vertical line in the background behind the man, to our right, probably indicates the corner of the room. The walls are painted with strokes of smoke gray, ocean blue, and some parchment white. The artist signed the work in dark letters in the upper right corner, “modigliani.”
Amedeo Modigliani, Chaim Soutine, 1918, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.47

Chaim Soutine

Amedeo Modigliani · 1918 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1963.10.47

A patchwork of earth-toned rectangles, cubes, and prism-like shapes surrounded by pools of cool aquamarine and silvery gray fill this square, nearly abstract painting. Brushstrokes, which are mostly horizontal, and dashes are visible throughout. A curving, pointed form at the lower center could be a boat with a tall, fawn-brown mast. It is surrounded by forms suggestive of rocks, other boats, or structures against a watery horizon. Most of the shapes around the boat are leather brown, tan, apricot orange, muted violet, or steel gray. Another pole, also suggestive of a mast, angles up from near the lower left corner, about a third of the way into the composition. Many of the shapes are outlined with charcoal-gray lines. Horizontal and blended strokes in pewter gray and icy blue at the upper corners suggest the sky.
Georges Braque, Harbor, 1909, oil on canvas, Gift of Victoria Nebeker Coberly in memory of her son, John W. Mudd, 1992.3.1

Harbor

Georges Braque · 1909 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1992.3.1

Painted entirely with small dots of pure color mostly in slate and azure blue, olive green, and cream white, this scene shows a sandy beach stretching to a lighthouse at the center and a four-story building to our right in this horizontal seascape. The tall, slender lighthouse standing on the water’s edge a short distance from us is painted with specks of azure and sky blue, ivory, and peach. In the distance to our left, a pier stretches into the sea along the horizon, which comes about two-thirds of the way up this composition. A sailboat floats just off the pier, near the left edge of the painting. To our right of the lighthouse and extending off the right edge of the canvas, the building has three levels of windows and a row of dormers along the tall, peaked roof. The building is painted with touches of dove gray, sapphire blue, and pale pink. In front of the building and to our right, a denim-blue shed has a tangerine-orange roof. A wooden rowboat outlined in cornflower blue with flecks of dandelion yellow rests on the sand next to the shed. In front of us, dots of moss green blend into the blond tones of the sand, creating an impression of grass on the beach. Sunlight shimmers on the sea to our left, which is painted with short dashes of mint and seafoam green, baby blue, cream, and shell pink, beneath a clear, ice-blue sky.
Georges Seurat, The Lighthouse at Honfleur, 1886, oil on canvas, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 1983.1.33

The Lighthouse at Honfleur

Georges Seurat · 1886 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1983.1.33

A woman bends double to tend a garden that stretches before us in front of two houses in this horizontal landscape painting. The scene is painted with short, visible brushstrokes with a palette dominated by spring, pine, and celery green and earthy tan, peanut, and chestnut brown. Touches of canary yellow, pale pink, coral, and ruby red suggest sunflowers, roses, and other flowers. The woman wears a long, steel-gray skirt and a long-sleeved olive-green shirt. Her brown hair is bound up, and her face and hands, indicated with only a few short swipes of paint, are pale peach. She stoops over a light green patch to our right of center near a bundle of sticks or a group of tall dried stems, to our right. Leafy greens have been planted in rows to our left. Across from us, beyond the cultivated rows, masses of flowers grow in a band that nearly spans the width of the composition. Beyond, a gray stone house with a dark gray roof and a second brick red roof rise above the plants and trees. The pale blue sky above is dotted with cotton-white clouds. The artist signed and dated the work with dark paint in the lower left corner: “C. Pissarro 1898.”
Camille Pissarro, The Artist's Garden at Eragny, 1898, oil on canvas, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection, 1970.17.54

The Artist's Garden at Eragny

Camille Pissarro · 1898 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1970.17.54

Georges Seurat, The Seine with Clothing on the Bank (Study for "Bathers at Asnières"), 1883/1884, oil on wood, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 2014.18.56

The Seine with Clothing on the Bank (Study for "Bathers at Asnières")

Georges Seurat · 1883/1884 · oil on wood ·  Accession ID  2014.18.56

Three pale-skinned ballet dancers wearing orange and dark turquoise costumes stand together on a stage in this square composition, which is painted with gouache and drawn with pastel over a monotype print. The dancers are close together near the center of the drawing, between two scrims representing trees, bushes, and grass on the theater set. A backdrop beyond suggests bushes and a tan-colored mountain under a blue sky. Two ballerinas face away from us. The dancer to the left has long, copper-red hair, and the one to the right has long brown hair. That second dancer leans onto one pointed toe. The third dancer, also with brown hair, is closer to and faces us, but she bends forward to adjust one shoe, and her face is hidden behind the stage setting. All three have peach-colored flowers in their hair, and their costumes have knee-length tutus with alternating layers of orange and turquoise. Swag sleeves lie across the dancers' upper arms from their low-cut bodices, and all three wear pale pink ballet slippers. The scene is drawn and painted with loose, visible strokes of paint and pastel, making many details indistinct. The artist signed the lower left corner, “Degas.”
Edgar Degas, Ballet Dancers, c. 1877, pastel and gouache over monotype, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection, 1970.17.27

Ballet Dancers

Edgar Degas · c. 1877 · pastel and gouache over monotype ·  Accession ID  1970.17.27

We look slightly down onto a bare, gnarled tree near a gray, dirt path, which leads back to a hamlet in this horizontal landscape painting. The scene is loosely painted with visible brushstrokes, so many details are indistinct. To our left, the gray tree trunk sways to the left as the branches of its skeletal canopy nearly span the width of the painting. The path extends from the lower right corner of the painting into the distance, around a lattice-like fence, which also runs across the width of the canvas. To our right and facing away from us, a person wearing brown pants, a sky-blue shirt, and a gray cap leans his forearms on the chest-high fence as he presumably talks with the woman standing on the other side. She wears a long navy-blue dress with a sea-blue apron and a tan hat. The land enclosed within the fence is painted with bands of peanut brown and sage green. Another woman wearing a slate-blue skirt, a sky-blue shirt, and a white cap walks away from us down the path using a cane or walking stick. To her right is a thicket of loosely painted moss-green and rust-brown foliage. Across a gully in the distance, a white picket fence separates us from the small village. The buildings have white or beige walls and pitched terracotta-red, tan, or denim-blue roofs. Beyond these structures, flax-brown trees are silhouetted against a light blue sky with fluffy white clouds. The artist signed and dated the painting in dark brown in the lower left corner: “C. Pissarro. 1872.”
Camille Pissarro, The Fence, 1872, oil on canvas, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 1985.64.31

The Fence

Camille Pissarro · 1872 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1985.64.31

Bibliography

1961

  • Seligman, Germain. Merchants of Art: 1880-1960, Eighty Years of Professional Collecting. New York, 1961.

1968

  • The César Mange de Hauke Bequest. The British Museum, London, 1968.

1989

  • Les Donateurs de Louvre. Paris, 1989:227