Chevalier Sébastien Érard

French, 1752 - 1831

Explore Selected Works

A man with tanned skin is surrounded by animals as he reclines against a grassy slope in this horizontal landscape painting. The area close to us is darkened or in shadow, so some details are difficult to make out, but the land brightens under a golden sky as it recedes into the deep, hazy distance. In the lower left corner of the canvas, the man faces our right in profile, looking toward the grazing animals. He wears a wide-brimmed hat and a caramel-brown jacket over a knee-length garment. He leans back on his near arm with one leg bent and the other extended. His far hand lies across his torso and holds a short staff. A dark brown goat, tan-colored sheep, and brown and gray cows wander and nibble on muted green, scrubby growth that carpets the hilly ground, which stretches across the center and right side of the composition. Trees with laurel-green canopies grow up beyond the man, and extend off the top edge of the painting. A slender, almost leafless tree frames the scene on the right. Two men walk on a gently arched, stone bridge beyond the spindly tree. Low hills slope down to a misty blue-gray plain, where a river winds along a jagged bank dotted with trees. In the far distance, ghostly buildings stretch along a line of slate-blue mountains. A glowing sun in the upper left corner casts diffused light across the scene. The sky is scattered with wisps of thin clouds.
Anonymous Artist, The Herdsman, 17th or 18th century, oil on canvas, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1946.7.12

The Herdsman

Anonymous Artist · 17th or 18th century · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1946.7.12

A man and woman on horseback are on a strip of land also occupied by livestock, dogs, and seven other people in front of a body of water and towering cliff in this horizontal landscape painting. The couple on horseback is in the lower left quadrant of the composition, and they both have pale, peach-toned skin. The man’s silvery-white horse pulls its head down and back toward its front legs, mouth open. The man sits with one hand holding the reins and the other planted on his hip, palm facing out. He wears a white cloth tied around his neck, a tan-colored jacket, loose, nickel-gray pants, knee-high brown boots, and a wide-brimmed, peanut-brown hat with plumes of mauve-purple feathers. The man has shoulder-length, dark, curly hair and a goatee. A curved horn hangs from a strap looping across his torso, and a scarlet-red cloth is bunched over the saddle. Behind the white horse, the woman’s brown horse faces us. The woman wears a dark yellow dress with white sleeves and a white cloth along the neckline. Her hair is loose under a wide-brimmed, brown hat with dark yellow and white feathers. A falcon perches on her glove-covered hand. The mounted man talks to another man who stands next to the white horse. That man also has peach-toned skin, holds a lance, and wears a dark, royal-purple coat. A clean-shaven, pale-skinned young man sits and hunches toward two dogs at his feet in the lower left corner of the picture. Two more men wearing long robes stand a short distance away behind the boy. One has their back to us and the other, facing us, has dark brown skin and wears a turban. He holds one hand out, palm up. The person on this side sits in a boat near the left edge of the painting, looking off in that direction. He has dark, peach-colored skin and also wears a turban and robe. Six dogs spaced across the picture from the left edge to the mounted couple have brown or black fur with white spots. In the lower right corner of the composition, a person wearing tattered brown and red clothes sits facing away from us next to a cow and two sheep, all of whom lie down. The cow looks in our direction, head held low. Three goats mill about, and two sheep lie in a pile by the water’s edge as two men coax another goat onto a rowboat already laden with at least two cows. A two-masted sailing ship sits askance in low water to the right. A sailboat edges into the scene from the right edge, and a ship with sails unfurled sails near the cliff face to the right. That rocky outcropping comes almost halfway across the picture and is painted in tones of earthy brown and marine blue. Blocky structures along the top of the outcropping are hazy in the distance. The body of water stretches back to the horizon, where there are more outcroppings on the right and a church tower on the left. Mounds of white, puffy clouds against a vivid blue sky fill the top three-quarters of the composition behind the rock formations.
Nicolaes Pietersz Berchem, View of an Italian Port, early 1660s, oil on canvas, Gift of Robert H. and Clarice Smith, in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of the National Gallery of Art, 1990.62.1

View of an Italian Port

Nicolaes Pietersz Berchem · early 1660s · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1990.62.1

Shown from the waist up, a man dressed in fine clothing looks out at us from against a deeply shadowed background in this vertical portrait painting. The man’s pale, peachy skin has a warm undertone that glows in a stark light source from our left. His body and face are angled to our right, and he cuts his dark eyes back to look at us under raised brows. He has a rounded, bulbous nose, and a wispy golden-brown goatee frames his closed pink lips. Shadows on his cheeks and jowls suggest soft flesh and a five o’clock shadow. Wiry brown hair curls out over his temples and down to the nape of his neck beneath a green, gold, orange, and burgundy-red skullcap. A soft brown beret rests on top of his skullcap tipped at an angle away from us. A teardrop-shaped pearl earring hangs from a gold setting in the ear we can see. He wears a cream-white tunic with gold and brown detailing along the hemlines. Over that is a dark brown, vest-like garment. The sleeves are slashed so the outer fabric is eggplant purple, and the inner slashes are golden yellow. A red cloth drapes over his left arm, farther from us, and that hand rests on a gold, spiraling shaft. A dark sash may be tied around his waist, and it seems that his other hand rests against his hip, to our left. The lower half of his chest and the background fall into deep shadow, though, so some the details there are difficult to make out. The painting is signed and dated in dark letters in a shaded area, so is nearly invisible in the lower center right; it reads, “Rembrandt f. 1650.”
Dutch 17th Century, Portrait of Rembrandt, 1650, oil on canvas, Widener Collection, 1942.9.70

Portrait of Rembrandt

Dutch 17th Century · 1650 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1942.9.70