Art

Narcissa Niblack Thorne’s Virginia Entrance Hall compresses an imagined mid-eighteenth-century interior into a museum miniature whose open door, polished floor, and ordered furniture make scale briefly uncertain.

Look closely at Fragment (From an Orphrey Band). A vertical textile in red and gold depicts a saint holding a flag in the upper center.

Look closely at Virgin and Child with an Angel. A light-skinned, blond Virgin Mary in blue holds a child, his arms reaching around her neck and face upturned toward hers.

Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes imagined Mount Athos transformed into an immense portrait of Alexander the Great. The 1796 landscape makes a ruler’s desire for lasting fame look both spectacular and fragile.

Look closely at Young Spartan Girls Challenging Boys. A brown-toned image of a group of scantily clad young women at left, one holding out her arm toward a group of naked young men standing at right.

Look closely at Autumn Maples with Poem Slips. Papers with Japanese text hang from a tree bearing red and gold leaves.

Look closely at Three Oriental Figures (Jacob and Laban?). Print in black ink of three bearded men dressed in voluminous cloth hats.

Look closely at The Bay of Marseille, Seen from L'Estaque. Impressionist sea landscape, tan houses, blue ocean, distant mountains.

Look closely at The Fear of Love. Terracotta sculpture of a standing woman. Her right arm clutches fabric as a Cupid on her right pulls the fabric at her waist.

Look closely at Painting with Troika. Vibrant colored painting of beachscape with figures, structure, and ox pulled cart.

Look closely at Calf's Head and Ox Tongue. A white severed calf's head is suspended from a hook in its nose at right, painted with blue undertones and pink and yellow highlights.

Look closely at Richard Bill. Portrait of a light-skinned man in a long white wig and red-orange coat, holding a folded piece of paper and standing next to a desk, a large sailing ship off his left shoulder.

Look closely at Pierre Dupuis, Painter to the King. Engraving of a man with shoulder-length curly hair and flared mustache wearing a fur hat and clutching a heavy gold chain.

Look closely at Fragment. Textile fragment, light brown background with darker patterning of wide vine-line forms with leaves and flourishes, outlined in red thread.

Look closely at Improvisation No. 30 (Cannons). Abstract painting in various bright colors—yellow, blue, red, green, orange, pink—with lines indicating building-like structures as well as canons in the lower right corner.

Look closely at Young Woman at an Open Half-Door. A young woman peers out to the right from from a Dutch door whose bottom half is closed.

Look closely at Cabin in the Cotton. Painting of a cabin set below a dark blue sky and fluffy white clouds.

Look closely at Still Life with a Basket of Fruit and a Bunch of Asparagus. Painting of a woven basket filled with various fruits, including plums and apricots, on a table against a dark background, with asparagus and peapods on the table at front.

Look closely at After the Hurricane, Bahamas. Watercolor, boat debris and dark skinned man lie on beach, dark sky in background.

Look closely at Lacquer Tea Bowl 乾隆禦制雕漆盞. Black bowl with a narrow red base and embossed elements in red, including a floral border at top and bottom and Chinese characters in the middle.

Look closely at Love of Winter. Painting of a crowd of well-dressed light-skinned people in an open, snowy field surrounded by large rolling hills.

Look closely at The Poet's Garden. Lush tall grasses with small white flowers foreground a grove of bushy trees of varying types and heights, their leaves ranging from deep green to golden.

Look closely at The Tragic Actor (Rouvière in the role of Hamlet). Black print on cream paper of a bearded man standing at center, dressed in a large cloak and tights, a sword at his feet.

Look closely at Stack of Wheat (Snow Effect, Overcast Day). A lone wheat stack, in shadow, rests on a snow-covered field that is rendered in shades of white, blue, yellow, and purple.