David M. Koetser Gallery

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A butterfly, moths, and insects alight on or around a twig with green leaves and straw-yellow berries in this horizontal painting. The background is putty gray, and the objects and insects cast pale shadows to our right. The twig angles slightly upward from left to right in the center of the composition. Wide green leaves sprout from its top edge and three clusters of gleaming berries rest along the table closer to us. A butterfly perches on a leaf to the left on the twig, its wings spread and the antennae touching the leaf. The edges of the wings are charcoal grey with tan spots, and closer to its body, the wings are gold, dotted with black. A bug with a narrow brown body and nearly translucent wings sits near the center of the branch, and a moth perches on the broken end of the twig to our right. The moth’s wings are closed above its body. Its body is striped with yellow and black, and the white wings have black dots. Another moth, with its tan wings also closed, sits on a sprig of berries near the lower right corner of the painting. There are two more insects with spindly bodies and thin, narrow wings, one on a stem of branches near the lower left corner, and one on a green leaf near the upper right. More insects rest on the gray surface around the twig and berries. Along the bottom edge of the painting is a caterpillar with a golden yellow body with black spots, and a red face. Clustered near the top left corner, around the butterfly, are a brick-red bug with closed, sheer wings and six legs, a dark green insect also with six legs and yellow bands on its body, and an insect like a yellow jacket. At the top right is an elongated ladybug.
Jan van Kessel the Elder, Study of Butterfly and Insects, c. 1655, oil on copper, Gift of John Dimick, 1983.19.3

Study of Butterfly and Insects

Jan van Kessel the Elder · c. 1655 · oil on copper ·  Accession ID  1983.19.3

Sixteen men, women, and children sit on or walk among seven horses against a landscape with tall, narrow trees, buildings, and distant mountains under a vivid blue sky in this horizontal painting. In the lower left corner, a man and woman approach the group, which are arrayed across a dirt ground. The man carries a large basket with chickens over one arm and doffs his hat with his other hand. Just behind him, the woman carries a flat-bottomed, wide basket of fruit and vegetables balanced on her head. Some of the men in the main group wear wide-brimmed, feathered hats, long coats in shades of peanut brown, black, and scarlet red, and knee-length pants over stockings. The two other women wear gold-trimmed dresses in shimmering orchid pink or sapphire blue. Several of the men and women ride or prepare to ride horses, which range in shades of brown, gray, white, and black. Nine dogs with brown, white, or black fur frolic, stand, or lie among the horses. One boy pours from a jug into a stemmed glass with a flaring bowl, held by a man holding a curling hunting horn. Just beyond this pair, another man, wearing black and sitting on a horse, blows into a curving horn held up in one hand, while his other hand is planted on his hip. All the people have pale pink skin except for two men. One, to our right, is possibly of short stature and he has an olive complexion. He wears a crimson-red jacket and holds a falcon on one gloved hand. The second man has brown skin and holds the reins of a gray horse near the right edge of the composition. Near the lower right corner of the painting, a potted miniature orange tree sits on a ledge next to a peacock who perches nearby. A second peacock’s head peers out from behind the ledge. A fountain just behind the group at the center has water pouring from a stylized fish’s mouth. A sculpted woman riding the fish holds up a long object while water spouts in thin streams from her breasts. Another statue stands between two tall, spear-like trees to our left. To our right, about two dozen people look onto the scene below from a rooftop terrace on a section of the building rising up along the right edge of the painting. There, a band of musicians plays while guests dine at a small table with a peacock-shaped pie, as two more people bring out trays of food. On the front face of that structure, a man and woman talk on a balcony, as a monkey eating an orange perches on the banister. A grassy lawn or garden stretches back to a large manor house, which is hazy in the distance to our right. The horizon comes about a quarter of the way up this composition, and the sky above has bright white and flint-gray clouds against a brilliant blue sky. The overlapping letters “DG” are inscribed on the rump of a horse to our left, near the fountain. Painted in red in the lower right corner, the letters “PHILS” are entwined in a monogram next to a “W.”
Philips Wouwerman, The Departure for the Hunt, c. 1665/1668, oil on panel, The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund, in honor of Earl A. Powell III, Director of the National Gallery of Art (1992-2019), 2019.2.1

The Departure for the Hunt

Philips Wouwerman · c. 1665/1668 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  2019.2.1

Warm light pours onto white stone and brown brick buildings in a grassy landscape in this horizontal painting. Tiny people walk, stand, sit, and work across the turf, among the buildings, and over a bridge spanning a canal to our right. The people wear long-sleeved shirts, vests, britches, stockings, dresses, hats, and caps in shades of straw yellow, olive green, apple red, muted blue, brown, and bright white. Touches of peach paint suggest they are all pale skinned. The people closest to us are three men working along what might be the remains of a stone foundation in the lower left corner. One raises an instrument while another crouches nearby on the far side of the structure, and the third leans on our side, looking down at the grass. The land rises gently back to the end of a row of structures to our left. A thick-trunked tree with a sparse canopy is halfway between those structures and a building on our side of the bridge, in the center of the composition. That bone-white structure has engaged columns with capitals, a tiled roof, and a round, gazebo-like lantern or bell tower. A brick wall between more buildings line a lane beyond the tree and these structures, and rooflines pile up along the horizon, which comes halfway up the composition. People and children stand and sit on the grassy knoll or walk along the lane. The canal angles from the lower right corner of the canvas to the center of the horizon. The walls of the canal are built with thin layers of peach and tan-colored stone. Close to us, the wall on our side jogs to our left, creating an inlet or bay. A staircase cuts into the far wall to allow access to the water. Boats steered by men using long sticks carry people or supplies. A more elaborate covered boat, likely a ferry, pulls up to the base of the stairs. The stairs lead up to a plaza, which is lined with peanut-brown buildings with terracotta-brown roofs. People and dogs mill about the square and cross the bridge beyond the ferry. Some smoky-purple clouds drift into the scene from the left against an otherwise clear blue sky.
Canaletto, The Porta Portello, Padua, c. 1741/1742, oil on canvas, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1961.9.53

The Porta Portello, Padua

Canaletto · c. 1741/1742 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1961.9.53

Shown from the waist up, a pale-skinned man is angled slightly to our right with his hands together in prayer in this vertical portrait painting. The man’s slightly bulging blue eyes lift to look up and to the right. Wrinkles line his forehead and the corners of his eyes and lips. His cheeks are hollow, and the temple we see slightly sunken. He has a long nose, bags under his eyes, and his thin lips are pressed together in a line over a pointed chin. Straight brown hair parts to either side of his high forehead and falls to just beneath his ears. His raspberry-red shirt has a high black collar, and a dark, burgundy red scarf drapes over his far shoulder. All of his fingertips touch except for the pinkies, which pass each other to make an X shape. The man is evenly lit against a brown background.
Anonymous Artist, Portrait of a Donor, c. 1470/1475, oil on hardboard transferred from panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1961.9.66

Portrait of a Donor

Anonymous Artist · c. 1470/1475 · oil on hardboard transferred from panel ·  Accession ID  1961.9.66

Two pale-skinned women wearing jewel-toned blue, pink, and yellow togas sit on the ground at the foot of a stone building, with three, winged, child-like putti flying nearby in this horizontal painting. The women take up most of the left half of the painting while the building behind them spans nearly three-quarters of the composition. A sliver of landscape is visible beyond the building to our right. Both women have dark, ash-brown hair wrapped back around diadems, long, straight noses, dark eyes, and smooth skin. Their cheeks are flushed, and their dark pink lips are parted. To our left, the first woman sits with her body facing our right in profile, and she turns to look at us from the corners of her eyes. Six silver stars line the sky-blue diadem in her hair. Her voluminous white shift falls off the shoulder closer to us, and she wears a swath of sapphire-blue drapery over her other arm and lap. One foot, wearing a yellow sandal, emerges from under the hem of her robe. She leans the elbow closer to us on a silver sphere, which comes a bit higher than her waist. Her other hand rests on the shoulder of the woman next to her. The second woman sits with her legs angled to our right, and she turns her face back to look at the first woman. She wears a butter-yellow garment under a rose-pink toga, and one foot, wearing a blue sandal, rests on the dirt ground. A baby-blue ribbon is tied through her hair, around a gold coronet. Her hands rest on a book in her lap. The partial word “odiss” is written along the edges of the pages facing us. Three pudgy angels with small blue wings flutter near the second woman, to our right. The putti have short, brown or blond, curly hair. Sashes in golden yellow, pink, or blue are tied around one shoulder and their opposite hips. They hold up three crowns of leaves. The building immediately behind the women and putti is parchment white streaked with brown. A tall foundation supports two columns, the base of which are near the top edge of the painting. A few plants grow out of the crevices, and a bush with white and light blue flowers grows behind the woman in blue, to our left. A landscape extends into the distance to our right, with rolling green hills, trees, and far-off, ice-blue mountains along the horizon. The sky above has apricot-peach and gray clouds against a pale blue sky.
Simon Vouet, The Muses Urania and Calliope, c. 1634, oil on wood, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1961.9.61

The Muses Urania and Calliope

Simon Vouet · c. 1634 · oil on wood ·  Accession ID  1961.9.61

Jan Brueghel the Elder, Wooded Landscape with Travelers, 1610, oil on panel, The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund, 2020.26.1

Wooded Landscape with Travelers

Jan Brueghel the Elder · 1610 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  2020.26.1

Two nude young boys and a young woman holding a standing infant are tightly grouped around a table, almost filling this vertical painting. They all have pale skin tinged with pink. The woman is shown from the knees up, and she stands at the front, right corner of the table, which spans most of the composition. Facing our left in profile, her auburn-brown hair is pulled back and wrapped with a slate-blue ribbon, and is wound around the crown of her head. She looks down with dark eyes under thin brows. She has a long nose, and her full, dusty rose-pink lips are closed. Two thin cords hang like necklaces just above the neckline of her carnation-pink gown, which is unbuttoned to reveal one bare breast. The plump infant stands at the center of the group. The woman holds him close to her body, but he turns his face away to look at the young boy on our left. That child faces our right in profile and has wavy, copper-red hair. He is nude except for a blue sash, which is tied once tightly around his waist and then wrapped so a loose hoop hangs down over his belly. His right knee, closer to us, rests on an olive-green cloth crumpled on the table beneath him. He leans back slightly, with his belly pushed forward, and looks down at the infant while pointing to us with his closest hand. A third child, with unruly honey-blond hair, stands facing us from the back of the group, so is seen between the woman and the pointing child. The child at the back of the group touches the woman’s shoulder with one hand, looking straight at us with mouth slightly open. A burgundy-red sash is visible around the waist. Near the bottom edge of the painting, the tabletop is covered with a pumpkin-orange cloth striped with plum-purple and black. A book rests near the baby’s feet and is partially covered by the green cloth to our left. A peacock-blue cloth is bunched on the right half of the table and hangs off that side, obscuring the woman’s knees. The background is painted with broad strokes and swirls of brown and flint blue, with flickers of red and gold in the upper right.
Andrea del Sarto, Charity, before 1530, oil on panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1957.14.5

Charity

Andrea del Sarto · before 1530 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  1957.14.5

Dozens of men, women, and a few children gather in groups amid a grassy landscape with a mountain in the distance in this horizontal painting. All of the people have pale or ruddy skin and wear flowing cloaks over long tunics or gowns. Warm light from the upper left illuminates the two groups closest to us, which cluster along the left and right edges of the canvas. Each group is set against a dark background suggesting cave walls or rocky outcroppings. On our left, an elderly man sits with his back to us as he looks across this shoulder to our right. He wears an amber-brown robe with darker brown stripes, and a denim-blue boot on the foot we can see. His head is wrapped in a white turban, and his tan face is framed by a salt-and-pepper beard. Steel-blue fabric drapes across his hips. A man and woman stand just beyond him, facing us. The young, bearded, dark-haired man wears a gleaming sea-blue cloak over a burgundy-red garment. The woman is wrapped in a rust-red cloak and holds an infant close to her cheek. Along the right edge of the painting, two blond women and a young child gather around a table covered with a white cloth. The woman seated on the far side of the table wears a velvety, chocolate-brown gown with a white kerchief around her shoulders, and rose-pink fabric drapes across her lap. She faces us with her upper body turned to our right as she gazes up and to our right with one hand raised. A youth cradling a silver bowl filled with fruit stands behind her with his head also turned to look in the same direction. Along the rightmost edge of the canvas, a woman sits facing us, wearing a coral-red gown with one breast exposed along a low neckline. Blush-pink fabric patterned with teal-blue diamonds drapes over one shoulder and across her lap. She tilts her head to our right and gazes down at the child standing by her side. The child wears a silver-gray tunic and has closely cropped brown hair. The woman offers the child an orange fruit. An elderly, balding man with a long silver-gray beard and hair stands behind the woman, at the top of the group. His arms cross his chest while he bows slightly. Between the rocky outcroppings behind both groups, a grassy meadow stretches to a hazy blue mountain in the distance. A narrow stream runs across the painting just beyond the outcroppings. Several people at the far side of the stream flank a tall man with a long beard who stands facing us. He wears a full-length, brick-red robe with a black mantle draped over his head, across his arms, and down his back. A headdress over the mantle has peaks like a narrow crescent moon. To his right, our left, a man also wearing a red tunic and spruce-blue leggings bends down to place a gold circle or dish on a pile of other gold objects on the ground. Two women and two men stand clustered to his left, our right. The women wear blue-green robes, and the men have lead-gray cloaks. About twenty-five men and women along with two small children sitting on the ground create a band across the landscape beyond the group at the stream. They wear gold, aquamarine-blue, canary-yellow, and scarlet-red garments. To the left beyond this group, a crowd circles around a tall narrow structure supporting a gold-colored calf. The people look up at the animal while four women kneel in front, playing instruments. To our right, in the distance, four men and women sit around a cloth-covered table under a tent-like canopy. There are dishes on the table and a fifth person stands nearby, presumably serving the group. On a hill that rises steeply behind the tent, another group of four people recline in a similar canopied structure. At the center of the painting, between the tents and the group around the calf, a single bearded man with white hair walks toward our right in profile, the arm we can see extended. The landscape beyond the people has a lake lined with trees at the foot of the hazy mountain, which almost reaches the top of the composition. Finally, in the upper right corner, atop the rocky outcropping close to us, a person, seen from the waist down, kneels, wearing a rose-pink garment. Golden yellow flames flicker out around and behind the person.
Italian 16th Century, The Worship of the Golden Calf, c. 1594, oil on canvas, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1939.1.180

The Worship of the Golden Calf

Italian 16th Century · c. 1594 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1939.1.180

We look slightly down at an ornate fountain in a dirt and stone courtyard surrounded by about two dozen people, many of whom look at or gesture toward the fountain in this vertical painting. Most of the people have pale, peachy skin but one man, near the lower center, has dark brown skin and short black hair. The fountain has a broad, shell-shaped base filled with glimmering, aquamarine-blue water. In the basin, and as if carved from gray stone, two muscular, nude men blow horns as they ride stylized dolphins, which spout water into the pool. Two more people wearing robes sit atop a tall, pedestal-shaped form that rises from the back of the shell base. The person to our left holds aloft a bowl and the other holds a vessel on her lap as she turns to look up and behind her at the pinnacle of the fountain. There, a person, also carved from stone, sits on a throne and points down with one hand while the other, closer to us, rests on a short column with three flame-like protrusions up each side. He leans back against a short, curving ship with an oar coming through a porthole to our right. A nude, chubby, baby-like cherub straddles the rudder like a horse to our right. The sun falls down the front of the fountain, especially highlighting the middle tier and bottom shell-shaped basin, and it illuminates the people gathered around and near its base. One man to our left kneels on the edge of the basin and dips one hand in, as several others stand around it and look up at or point toward it. Most of the people wear robes, cloaks, and tunics in mustard yellow, tomato red, peach, white, and royal or light blue. A few vignettes draw the eye, including two men wearing chains on their ankles, are sprawled in shadow in the lower left corner of the composition. In that same cluster, two men stand and gesture toward the fountain while another sits at their feet. Nearby, the man with brown skin sits in front of a light-skinned man wearing a turban, a striped tunic, and a short sword hanging from his belt. The turbaned man stands with his back to us and rests his right hand on the handle of a pointed axe, using it like a cane. To our right, a person wearing an armor breastplate under a ruby-red cloak stands next to a balding man who also points up at the fountain. A young man wearing a lemon-yellow suit sits on a fallen block in the lower right corner of the composition, holding a board on his lap and presumably sketching the fountain, as a man wearing sapphire blue looks on. More people walk toward the fountain down in front of a gate to our right of the fountain. Beyond, plants and vegetation grow among ruins with columns, a stone obelisk, and a tall narrow pyramid. Pale pink clouds float in the pastel blue sky above. The artists signed their names as if written on the face of a stone block near the lower left: “B.” and “M.” next to “RICCI Faciebant.”
Sebastiano Ricci, Marco Ricci, Memorial to Admiral Sir Clowdisley Shovell, 1725, oil on canvas, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1961.9.58

Memorial to Admiral Sir Clowdisley Shovell

Sebastiano Ricci, Marco Ricci · 1725 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1961.9.58

A young woman sitting and holding a nude baby boy is surrounded by winged angels and four men in this vertical painting. They all have pale skin, and the people, not angels, have delicate gold rings as halos. The woman, Mary, sits on a white stone pedestal on a stone step, which spans the width of the painting. Her head tilts to our right as she looks down. Her brown hair is covered with a translucent white veil. She wears a raspberry-pink dress under a midnight-blue cloak lined with pine green. She cradles the chubby baby with both hands. He has round cheeks, a snub nose, and bow-shaped lips. He looks at Mary and reaches toward her face with one hand. Two men stand on the step to either side of her pedestal, and two more kneel at the base of the step. The man at the top left is cleanshaven and has wings striped with grass green, mauve pink, pearl white, and sky blue. He wears a gold helmet, a muscled breastplate, a knee-length, lavender-blue tunic, and gold, shin-high, toe-less shoes. He holds a sword up high with one hand and a scale with the other. A tiny man kneels and prays to Mary in the higher pan of the scale. In front of him, a man with darker, tanned skin, kneels on one leg with his body facing us as he turns his head to look up at Mary and the baby. His brows are furrowed and his lips parted. He has short, curly brown hair and a trimmed beard. He wears a bottle-green robe and a canary-yellow cloak. He holds a piece of paper on a pink book braced against his raised knee. To the upper right, the man standing next to Mary’s pedestal has a long white beard, and he looks down at an open book he holds with both hands. He wears a conical, split hat, a grass-green robe edged with a pattern of haloed, winged baby heads against maroon red. He wears gold rings over white gloves and a white garment underneath the cloak. In front of him, a balding man with a curly white beard and hair also kneels on one leg in front of the step. This man also looks down with lips parted. He holds a book with a moss-green cover with one hand and a pen in the other as he writes on a piece of paper on the book. He wears a cranberry-red cloak over a lapis-blue robe, and both kneeling men wear sandals on the feet we can see. Four winged angels, about half the size of the other people, hover in a line behind Mary, two to each side. They all have long, blond, curly hair. Their wings and robes are painted in shades of red, yellow, blue, and green. The angel to our left holds a spray of white flowers and one to our right holds a branch of white lilies. They all look at Mary or the baby. A sliver of blue, mountainous landscape is visible to our left of the pedestal. The horizon comes about halfway up the composition, so Mary, the angels, and the men standing to each side of the pedestal are mostly outlined against a pale blue sky.
Luca Signorelli, Madonna and Child with Saints and Angels, mid or late 1510s, oil on panel transferred to hardboard, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1961.9.87

Madonna and Child with Saints and Angels

Luca Signorelli · mid or late 1510s · oil on panel transferred to hardboard ·  Accession ID  1961.9.87