TAJCH

Repose

Artist: John White Alexander (American, Allegheny, Pennsylvania 1856–1915 New York)

Date: 1895

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 52 1/4 x 63 5/8 in. (132.7 x 161.6 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: Anonymous Gift, 1980

Accession Number: 1980.224

On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 768

Alexander, who lived in Paris during the 1890s, achieved international success with his studies of female figures gracefully posed in elegant interiors. In this example, the provocative facial expression and supple curves reflect the contemporary French taste for sensual images of women as well as the undulating linear rhythms of Art Nouveau. With its model decoratively attired in a sweep of white fabric, "Repose" was lampooned in a French magazine as a portrayal of Loïe Fuller (1862–1928), the American dancer famous for manipulating swirling folds of silk in her performances at the Folies Bergère in Paris.

Study of Light in a Vaulted Interior

Artist: Wilhelm Bendz (Danish, Odense 1804–1832 Vicenza) Medium: Oil on paper, laid down on canvas

Dimensions: 6 1/8 x 8 1/4 in. (15.6 x 21 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: Thaw Collection, Jointly Owned by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Morgan Library & Museum, Gift of Eugene V. Thaw, 2009

Accession Number: 2009.400.3

Look real close at this one to see how wonderful it is 

Evening Calm, Concarneau, Opus 220 (Allegro Maestoso)

Artist: Paul Signac (French, Paris 1863–1935 Paris) Date: 1891

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 25 1/2 x 32in. (64.8 x 81.3cm); Framed: 40 1/4 x 34 in. (102.2 x 86.4cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line:

Robert Lehman Collection, 1975

Accession Number: 1975.1.209

As Georges Seurat’s most ardent follower, Paul Signac steadfastly promoted the principles of Neo- Impressionism all his life. Adopting Seurat’s system of color harmony, Signac argued for the meticulous application of precise hues in separate strokes of paint across the canvas, a technique he said evoked “brilliantly colored lights.” This painting is one of five related images of fishing boats near the French town of Concarneau, in Brittany. Signac endowed his Concarneau paintings with musical sub-titles, suggesting a symphonic arrangement.

Masqueraders

Artist: Raimundo de Madrazo y Garreta (Spanish, Rome 1841–1920 Versailles) Date: 1875–78

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 40 x 25 1/2 in. (101.6 x 64.8 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: Robert Lehman Collection, 1975

Accession Number: 1975.1.233

Madrazo was famous during his lifetime and painted portraits for wealthy French, American, British, and Argentine patrons. He was also known for his skillful and often flirtatious genre scenes, such as this painting in the Lehman Collection. In this scene, a couple dressed in extravagant costumes share drinks in a quiet conservatory after a ball. The male leans across the table, gazing at the coquettish blonde female whose face is hidden behind a black mask. She drapes her fingers across her chest, one of many gestures and details in the painting that Madrazo uses to evoke a playfully suggestive subject. The artist further entices the viewer with his beautiful painterly effects seen in the way that he conveys extraordinary material—satin, fur, porcelain, glass, feather, and velvet, all bathed in light. William Henry Vanderbilt bought this painting in 1878, the same year that Madrazo won the first-class medal at the Exposition Universelle in Paris and was elected to the French Academy. This painting probably showed at the exposition in this year.

The Choir of the Capuchin Church in Rome

Artist: François Marius Granet (French, Aix-en-Provence 1775–1849 Aix-en-Provence) Date: 1814–15

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 77 1/2 x 58 1/4 in. (196.9 x 148 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: Gift of P. L. Everard, 1880

Accession Number: 80.5.2

Granet conceived this subject during Napoleon's occupation of Rome, at which time the Capuchin order had been banished from its seventeenth-century church near piazza Barberini. Despite French policy, the painting was purchased by the Emperor's sister Caroline Murat, Queen of Naples, for their brother Louis Bonaparte. He had seen it in Granet’s studio, where it created a sensation at the end of 1814, prompting Pope Pius VII to grant the artist an audience. This is the first version of a composition that Granet painted, by his own count, at least fifteen times.

The Ballet from "Robert le Diable"

Artist: Edgar Degas (French, Paris 1834–1917 Paris) Date: 1871

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 26 x 21 3/8 in. (66 x 54.3 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929

Accession Number: 29.100.552

“When Degas made this picture in 1871, Giacomo Meyerbeer’s opera Robert le Diable was forty years old and feeling its age—as reflected by the man at center, indifferent to the action and directing his binoculars at the audience. But Degas was fond of the opera, and particularly of the scene depicted here, from the third act, in which nuns arise from the dead and dance seductively amid the ruins of a moonlit monastery. The painting was exhibited in early 1872, the date inscribed on the canvas; Degas later executed a larger version (Victoria and Albert Museum, London) for Jean-Baptiste Faure, who starred in the opera.” - from the Met Museum’s website.

They failed to mention that Degas was a pedophile who preyed on the prepubescent girls that were usually orphans and taken in by dance schools to become ballerinas or performers. They had little to no guidance and Degas took advantage of these vulnerable young girls. 

The Family of Mr. Westfal in the Conservatory

Artist: Eduard Gaertner (German, Berlin 1801–1877 Zechlin) Date: 1836

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 9 3/8 x 7 7/8 in. (23.8 x 20 cm) Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: Purchase, funds from various donors, by exchange, 2007

Accession Number: 2007.70

This light-filled conservatory belonged to the prosperous Berlin wool merchant Christian Carl Westphal, a passionate horticulturist. The stark glass structure here serves as a Biedermeier day-room for his family. Gaertner was the preeminent painter of Berlin’s grand new boulevards, but this is one of only four interior scenes he is known to have painted; it may have been owned by Westfal, who was his landlord.

Woman before a Mirror

Artist: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (French, Albi 1864–1901 Saint-André-du-Bois) Date: 1897

Medium: Oil on cardboard

Dimensions: 24 1/2 x 18 1/2 in. (62.2 x 47 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: The Walter H. and Leonore Annenberg Collection, Bequest of Walter H. Annenberg, 2002

Accession Number: 2003.20.15

The indolent, cloistered lives of prostitutes were the subject of some of Lautrec’s most powerful works. He made about fifty paintings depicting them, as well as numerous drawings and prints, including a suite of color lithographs, Elles, which was completed the year before this painting. Lautrec does not flatter the woman’s naked figure, nor does he divulge the expression she sees in her mirror: she appears simply to be taking a stark appraisal of herself.

First Steps

Artist: Franz Ludwig Catel (German, Berlin 1778–1856 Rome) Date: ca. 1820–25

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 18 3/4 x 14 3/4 in. (47.6 x 37.4 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: The Whitney Collection, Promised Gift of Wheelock Whitney III, and Purchase, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Charles S. McVeigh, by exchange, 2003 Accession Number: 2003.42.9

The theme of a child’s first steps was a popular subject of genre paintings in the uncertain years following the French Revolution, owing largely to its reassuring message of continuity. Catel, who studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, would also have been familiar with the related allegory of the Ages of Man, the subject of a major Salon painting by François Gérard (1808; Musée Condé, Chantilly). The present work shares the Italian setting of Gérard’s but updates its antique dress by depicting a contemporary peasant family.

The Four Trees

Artist: Claude Monet (French, Paris 1840–1926 Giverny) Date: 1891

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 32 1/4 x 32 1/8 in. (81.9 x 81.6 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929

Accession Number: 29.100.110

During summer and fall 1891 Monet painted a series of views of poplars along the Epte River, at Giverny. Completion of the series was temporarily threatened when the village of Limetz, across the Epte from Giverny, decided to sell the trees at auction. Monet paid a local lumber merchant to ensure that the trees remained standing until he finished his work. He painted some of the pictures from the riverbank, and others, such as this one, from a boat specially outfitted with grooves to hold multiple canvases. Like the Haystacks, the Poplars were first exhibited as a series. Fifteen were shown in Paris in 1892.

Interior Passage in the Colosseum

Artist: François Diday (Swiss, Geneva 1802–1877 Geneva) Date: 1825

Medium: Oil on paper, laid down on canvas

Dimensions: 11 5/8 x 14 1/2 in. (29.3 x 36.9 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: The Whitney Collection, Promised Gift of Wheelock Whitney III, and Purchase, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Charles S. McVeigh, by exchange, 2003 Accession Number: 2003.42.24

Diday focused his attention on transitions of light and shadow in this arched passage, which was depicted by a number of artists in the early nineteenth century. The painter is said to have exhibited many studies executed in Italy following his sojourn of 1824–25. The present example may have been included in an exhibition held at Galerie Lebrun, Paris, in 1826, the year after it was painted.

"Music"

Manufactory: Savonnerie Manufactory (Manufactory, established 1626; Manufacture Royale, established 1663) Date: ca. 1685–97

Culture: French, Paris

Medium: Wool (Ghiordes knot, 90 knots per square in.)

Dimensions: Overall: 15' 10" x 29' 8" (356 x 190 in.) (904.2 x 482.6 cm)

Classification: Textiles-Rugs

Credit Line: Rogers Fund, 1952

Accession Number: 52.118

Ceiling painting from the palace of Amenhotep III

Period: New Kingdom

Dynasty: Dynasty 18

Reign: reign of Amenhotep III

Date: ca. 1390–1353 B.C.

Geography: From Egypt, Upper Egypt, Thebes, Malqata, Palace of Amenhotep III, Antechamber to King's bedroom, MMA excavations, 1910–11

Medium: Dried Mud, mud plaster, paint, Gesso

Dimensions:h. 140 cm (55 1/8 in); w. 140 cm (55 1/8 in)

Credit Line: Rogers Fund, 1911

Accession Number: 11.215.451

The important buildings in the palace complex of Amenhotep III at Malqata were embellished with floor, wall, and ceiling paintings. This partially restored section of a ceiling painting was discovered lying face up in a room adjacent to the king's bedchamber. The motif consists of a repeating pattern of rosette-filled running spirals alternating with bucrania (ox skulls). Similar ceiling patterns, both painted and modeled in plaster, have been excavated at Aegean sites of a slightly earlier period.

Reading at a Table

Artist: Pablo Picasso (Spanish, Malaga 1881–1973 Mougins, France) Date: 1934

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 63 7/8 x 51 3/8 in. (162.2 x 130.5 cm) Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: Bequest of Florene M. Schoenborn, in honor of William S. Lieberman, 1995

Accession Number: 1996.403.1

Rights and Reproduction:© 2018 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

“In this painting of his lover Marie-Thérèse Walter reading a book, Picasso returns to a favored subject: a woman seated alone. The darkened room and glow from the lamp give her an ethereal presence, while her alabaster skin, blonde hair, and floral crown enhance her youth. Though she featured prominently in Picasso’s work at the time, their relationship was the least public of Picasso’s many amatory alliances, a fact that imbues this painting with a sense of tender intimacy. The canvas, one of several similar compositions Picasso painted of his mistress, is a poem by a man in love.” - from the Met’s website.

I would personally like to add that Picasso met Marie-Thérèse Walter when she was 17 and he was 45. They had a sexual relationship, and had children together. He was a pedophile and an abuser. This painting should not be looked at as a “painting with a sense of tender intimacy” but rather a metaphor for Picasso’s twisted desires.

The Englishman (William Tom Warrener, 1861–1934) at the Moulin Rouge

Artist: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (French, Albi 1864–1901 Saint-André-du-Bois) Date: 1892

Medium: Oil on cardboard

Dimensions: 33 3/4 x 26 in. (85.7 x 66 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: Bequest of Miss Adelaide Milton de Groot (1876–1967), 1967

Accession Number: 67.187.108

William Tom Warrener, an English painter and friend of Lautrec’s, appears as a top-hatted gentleman chatting up two female companions at the Moulin Rouge, the dance hall that epitomized the colorful and tawdry nightlife of fin-de-siècle Paris. The women’s suggestive attitudes—and Warrener’s ear, reddened in embarrassment—indicate the risqué nature of their conversation. This painting served as a preparatory study for a color lithograph of 1892.

Garden of the Villa Medici, Rome

Artist: Jean-Achille Benouville (French, Paris 1815–1891 Paris) Medium: Oil on paper

Dimensions: 9 7/8 x 8 5/8 in. (25.1 x 21.9 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: Thaw Collection, Jointly Owned by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Morgan Library & Museum, Gift of Eugene V. Thaw, 2009

Accession Number: 2009.400.4

Columns of the Temple of Neptune at Paestum

Artist: Constantin Hansen (Danish, Rome 1804–1880 Frederiksberg) Date: 1838

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 12 5/8 x 10 in. (32.1 x 25.4 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: Gift of Eugene V. Thaw, 2007

Accession Number: 2007.164.4

In June 1838, as part of his extended Italian sojourn (1835–43), Hansen visited the Hellenic complex at Paestum, about fifty miles south of Naples. To compose this view, he stood within the so-called Temple of Neptune, using its massive fluted Doric columns to frame the distant Temple of Athena. This study owes a debt to Hansen’s early training as an architect, a career he abandoned in order to study with the leading lights of the golden age of Danish painting, Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg and his pupil Christen Købke.