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The Test of Fire of Moses

Copy of The Night Watch

Johannes Vermeer. Gezicht op Delft / Vue de Delft / View of Delft / Ansicht von Delft

The Night Watch Militia Company of District II under the Command of Captain Frans Banninck Cocq

Paradise

The Merry Family

Three women and five men play cards around a round table covered with piles of gold coins in this square painting. The people all have pale skin. The women have round faces, close-set, small eyes, delicate noses and lips, and cleft chins. They wear dresses with tight bodices and long sleeves, and cloth head coverings. The men have prominent, bumped noses, furrowed brows, and lines around their eyes. They wear hats and voluminous robes and coats in shades of ruby red, moss green, golden brown, and black. Two women and two men play cards, and each has a second person behind them or at their shoulders. The woman along the left edge of the painting wears gloves, and she looks out at us. She points at the table or at the space between her and another card player. She holds her cards up so the six of hearts at the front is visible in front of a face card of hearts and a card with spades. A clean-shaven man standing behind her stoops and drapes his arms across her shoulders, one hand limp and gesturing with a three and the other hand cupping the woman’s cards. He looks across the table. The next player is also a woman, who rests one wrist on her face-down cards on the table. She counts out coins with her other hand, and the bearded man behind her stands with one hand tucked into the opening of his robe, leaning back as he looks across the table. Next, a clean-shaven man holds three cards up to his chest as he turns to look to our left, his brows gathered and lips parted. A woman stands between these two players with a hand draped over each of their shoulders. She peers down at the man’s cards and makes a number two with that hand. Her other loose fist rests on the shoulder of the second female card player. The final pair, along the right edge of the painting, are two men. The card player holds his cards so we see the ace of spades at the front. He points at a row of coins or toward the gap left between him and the woman to our left. He leans forward and looks intently, chin jutted out, at the man with his hand tucked into his robe. A man with a long gray beard sits just over the fourth player’s shoulder and appears to look across the scene absently with heavy-lidded eyes. The round table is covered in a teal-blue cloth. A rectangular sideboard in the back left of the room is covered with a white cloth and holds a vase of white flowers, a vessel, a wooden basket, and a piece of fruit. The wall behind this is gray along the top and wood-paneled below. An alcove in the wall to the right holds two vessels, a round gold-colored, plum-sized object, and another basket. A pale yellow curtain is pulled to the right side of that alcove.

This painting depicts a rural scene with people gathered in front of log cabins. Hills, sparse trees, and a haystack are visible in the background under a partly cloudy sky. In the distance on the left, two people stand on a pile of logs, a small fire breaking out on the far left and putting gray smoke in the air. Closer to us on the left, a man stands by a machine made of several horizontal rods, appearing to feed long strands of fiber or grain into it. Gathered in a line across the rest of the painting is a crowd of men and women, appearing to hold long, flat objects and bundles of thin fiber. Some of the people talk while others seem to dance. The people all have pale skin, and the women wear colorful dresses with aprons and bonnets, while the men wear jackets, vests, and top hats.

The painting depicts a wintry scene from an elevated point of view, showing people skating and playing games on a frozen river. On the left, leafless trees line the frozen bank. On the right, there are brown buildings with snow on their roofs and smoke rising from their chimneys. A woman stands on one of the porches, holding a small child. On the snowy ground outside the buildings, a sled is being pulled by two horses. In the center of the painting is the wide frozen river. The people on it wear colorful clothes in shades of red, yellow, green, blue, and brown. Some of them slip and fall on the ice, and others lace skates on their feet. Four men in the center hold long curved sticks and look towards a small round ball on the surface of the ice. In the distance, the horizon is marked by blue-tinged mountains under a cloudy gray sky.

View of Houses in Delft, Known as ‘The Little Street’

The image shows a street scene with an urban setting. The composition includes buildings, a statue on a pedestal, signs like "City Hotel" and "Hard Ware," a group of men with a horse, a water pump, two dogs, people on a sidewalk and hotel balcony, additional figures, a worker with stacked bricks. The color palette features warm tones like orange, brown, and green. Brushstrokes are precise and detailed, creating a realistic depiction of the scene.

Approximately two dozen people gather around a man standing with his mouth wide open and holding up two objects in a scarlet-red structure on a horse-drawn cart in this horizontal painting. The people appear to all have pale skin and most are men. Near the center of the composition, the man in the cart wears a white robe over a black, high-collared garment and a tall charcoal-gray hat. A hatch on the red structure appears to be open, and he holds up what might be books or pamphlets. A ginger-brown horse stands behind him with its head bowed. In the crowd, the men wear black, brown, gray, dark blue, or olive-green clothing and hats. Two women are to the left. One wears a green gown with a pumpkin-orange shawl and a wide-brimmed bonnet. She faces away from us. She and two men talk near a stand where another man and woman sell food and drink. More people gather around a second stand or structure beyond this, and, in the lower left corner of the painting, a man with white hair and a hooked nose and chin sits by an open cart with a sign reading, “Bear O! Pi Aiggs.” A few men dance and others mill about to the right of the cart. Closer to us, one boy runs toward another as a soldier lies belly-down on the ground, holding a bayoneted rifle out toward a brown dog. The dog crouches with its mouth open. Beyond the dancers and onlookers, a field stretches back to wooded hills. In the field, more than a hundred people stand or march in lines. Lavender-tinged clouds pile up in the blue sky over the horizon, which comes about halfway up this composition.

In this horizontal painting, a crowd of more than two dozen men and women gathered shoulder to shoulder at the foot of three men hanging from wooden crosses nearly fill the scene. All the people have pale or ruddy skin. To our left of center, each of the crucified men is tied and nailed to a cross. Blood pours from their hands and feet, and from a gash over the central man’s right ribs. The men’s heads slump and their bodies sag. They are nude except for a red cloth across the central man’s hips and a small white loincloth on the man to our right. Two of the men wear crowns of thorns. The spear piercing the central man’s side is held by a man riding a white horse in the crowd below. At least three additional men in the crowd are on horseback. Many of the men are armed with spears, creating a bristle of vertical and diagonal lines over the group. The men and women wear robes and uniforms in shades of golden yellow, pine green, crimson and rust red, black, and cream white. A few men wear metal helmets, and one wears armor. Near the lower left corner, a woman wearing a navy-blue robe has fainted and is supported by two kneeling women while another woman and cleanshaven man look on, their fingers interlaced and held low. The smooth ground is grass green. A spindly tree with dark green leaves grows up the right side of the composition. Off in the distance beyond the tree, two buildings hint at a city. Blue clouds billow in the blue sky above.

Hunting near Hartenfels Castle

A smiling young woman and an elderly man with exaggerated features embrace and gaze into each other’s eyes while a person dressed in the orange costume of a fool lurks behind them to our left in this horizontal painting. All three have pale skin and are shown from the chest up behind a ledge or tabletop against a black background. The older man to our right wears a dark teal-blue garment and a bright crimson-red head covering that drapes over both shoulders. Wrinkles and age spots cover his face, which is accentuated by a bulbous nose and a leering smile that exposes missing teeth. His arms reach out and encircle the woman to our left. Cradling the right side of her head with his right hand, his left arm reaches across to her upper body, his thumb visible at her breast. A blue and gold band holds the woman’s auburn-brown hair back. A white shift peeks through the slashed sleeves of her emerald-green, gold-trimmed gown. She reaches toward the elderly man with her right arm, her hand holding his chin. Her left arm reaches across her body under his arm and she holds a leather pouch in that hand. A man wearing an orange cap with asses’ ears reaches for the pouch, eyes crossed and his tongue protruding from the side of his mouth. Playing cards and coins lie on the ledge to our left.

Dozens of people form a line starting from an opening in a city wall or building in the background to a rustic shed-like structure close to us, to kneel before a seated woman holding a baby on her lap in this vertical painting. All of the people have pale skin tinged faintly with green. The top edge of the panel is shaped so it has two rounded sections like shoulders leading to a stepped, crown-like form with an inward curving triangle at the top. A nickel-gray, crenelated stone wall of a distant city is nestled into the top, stepped section, with a glimmering gold sky above filling the uppermost triangle. Tile-roofed and domed buildings and a few towers appear densely packed beyond the wall. People on foot and horseback create a line from an arched opening in the wall toward us and to our right. Three of the people on horseback in the distance wear long robes and have gold halos. The line of people winds behind a tall, narrow hill to our right and it continues close to us. Two horses, two camels, and several people wait to the right but our attention is drawn to the trio in the foreground, Mary, Jesus, and Joseph, and the three men near the infant, the Magi. Mary wears a lapis-blue mantle covering her head and shoulders over a petal-pink dress, and she sits on a wooden or stone chest in the center of the painting. Her body faces us but she turns her face to look with pale blue eyes off to our right. In one hand she holds a hexagonal gold vessel that tapers to a flame-like finial. With the other hand, on our left, she supports the blond infant sitting in her lap. He is covered only with a white cloth around his waist, and he looks toward the vessel as he holds up the index and middle fingers of his right hand. To our left and slightly behind Mary, a balding man with white hair and beard and wearing a blue garment under a red robe sits with his head propped in his hand, looking down. His other hand rests on what might be the handle of a crutch or staff. The man, woman, and child have gold halos with what appears to be writing. The three Magi also have gold halos and they all wear scarlet-red shoes. The oldest kneels before Mary and kisses Jesus's feet. He has a long, light gray beard and is balding. He wears a brocade-like gold robe over pale brick-red sleeves. A cleanshaven man with dark brown hair and wrinkles around his mouth kneels to our left as he raises a jewel-encrusted gold crown from his head. He wears a gold and red floral-patterned garment and holds a rounded vessel, also with a flame-like finial. A younger, cleanshaven man with smooth features and shoulder-length, curling blond hair to our right also wears a gold crown. A dagger hangs from the waist of his sky-blue tunic, and his leggings are pale plum purple. Both arms are bent to his hands are held up, and in his right hand, he holds another tabernacle-like gold vessel. The structure to our left houses a donkey and bull munching hay. A gold sunburst floats above the roof, which seems to be built up against the stone wall of a building. The hills and trees beyond the people is painted with pine and moss greens and brown.

adoration of the Magi

The Trojan Women Setting Fire to Their Fleet

On a tiled courtyard between buildings with arches and columns, a winged angel kneels and looks up at a woman standing to our right in this vertical painting. Both people have pale skin, blond hair, and plate-like gold halos at the back of their heads. To our left, the angel wears a silvery-white tunic under a scarlet-red cloak lined with cobalt blue. The wings are fawn brown on the underside, closer to the body, and aquamarine blue on the outside. Gold lines delineate feathers. The angel holds a white lily with two blooms and four buds on a long stem in the hand farther from us, which rests on a bent knee. The other hand is raised in front of the chest. The woman, Mary, stands along the right edge of the painting, her body angled toward the angel. Mary’s long, wavy hair falls to her shoulders, and she wears a lapis-blue robe with a pine-green lining over a red dress. She holds her right hand, farther from us, to her chest and touches the fabric of her cloak with the other, by her hip. The tip of one red shoe peeks out under her voluminous robe. Between the angel and Mary is a stone-white urn with scrolled handles, holding a bouquet of pink and white roses with dark green foliage. The ground is tiled with squares marbled in pale pink, sky blue, rust red, charcoal gray, and brown. Narrow, white panels between the tiles create a grid. The buildings around the pair are fog gray, parchment white, shell pink, or coral red, and are trimmed in black, red, or pink. Rows of arches recede into the square behind the angel and woman, ending at a coral-red wall that encloses the courtyard. An arched doorway in that wall opens onto a pathway leading over a small brook and into a hilly forest. A narrow, conical tree outside the courtyard reaches over the wall, into the vibrant blue sky above. A white dove descends from among the few scattered clouds with golden beams projecting toward the woman to our right.

Interieur van een timmermanswerkplaats

A man, woman, and four winged angels gather and kneel around a nude infant lying on the ground under a stone arched opening set in front of a landscape in this vertical painting. All of the people have pale white or lightly tanned skin. To our left, the woman wears gold-edged, royal-blue robes and has long, curly brown hair. The baby lies on the hem of her robe, his body facing her. An older, balding and bearded man kneels to the right, leaning on a walking stick. He wears a red garment under a green robe, and he holds a hat in his hands as he gazes at the baby. About a third the size of the man and woman, two of the angels kneel between the man and woman and another pair kneel to our left of the woman, seeming close to us. The angels wear colorful gold, pink, red, or yellow robes and all have long wavy blond hair. Their hands touch in prayer and all look down toward the baby. The people are sheltered in front of a crumbling stone wall under a wooden structure. To our left, a cow and donkey are penned in a stable. Two pairs of men stand near or lean on the other side of the rock wall that encloses the scene. A landscape with green rolling hills and a distant town with towers and buildings fills the background beneath a clear blue sky. A triangular structure made of wood beams is framed within the carved archway, which seems to separate us from the space of the painting. The face of the arch looks like it is carved with a nude man atop a column to the left and a similar woman to the right, and with miniature scenes stacked on tiny platforms curving upward to the apex of the arch.

The Windmill at Wijk bij Duurstede

After a Long Cruise

A woman wearing long robes and standing on an upturned, gold crescent moon is surrounded by twenty winged angels who lift her up, sing, or play musical instruments in this vertical painting. Below, a grassy landscape with rocky hills, a river, and buildings stretches into the distance. Along the top edge of the painting and smaller in scale, more angels surround two men sitting on a throne, holding a crown. All the people have smooth, pale skin, oval faces with small, delicate facial features, and long wavy hair. They wear fluttering, jewel-toned robes. The woman at the center, Mary, stands facing us with her eyes downcast and her hands held together in prayer. Her strawberry-blond hair lightens where her hair rests over her shoulders, and a jeweled band encircles her head. She wears a long, ruby-red dress with a jeweled neckline and navy-blue cloak trimmed with gold. Eight of the winged angels seem to lift her body, four along each side. Seven more angels float around the scene playing instruments, including a lute, a harp, recorder-like instruments, and stringed instruments, one of which resembles a violin and another a dulcimer. Along the top of the group, around Mary’s head, four angels sing, holding sheet music. In tiny letters, writing on the sheet of music to our left reads, “A ve regina celorum mr regis,” while the writing on the music to our right reads, “A Tenor ve regina.” The angels wear robes in emerald green, royal or sky blue, butter yellow, rose pink, tomato red, silver, or white, and their wings match their robes. Some of the robes are embroidered with gold and some angels wear jeweled diadems. The edges of an oval, gold halo are visible behind the angels at Mary’s head and feet. Above Mary and the angels, a scene, much smaller in scale, recedes into the distance within a ring of dark clouds. Two haloed, bearded men wearing scarlet-red robes and with shoulder-length brown hair sit on a wide throne covered with a black and gold brocade cloth. The man to our left is bareheaded and the man to our right has a tall, blue and gold crown. A white dove with wings spread hovers above a second gold crown they hold between them. More than a dozen angels surround the throne, holding up the cloth or singing. A black and red checked tile floor stretches in front of the throne. Along the bottom edge of the painting, beneath Mary and the angels, a grassy landscape with fields and trees stretches into the distance to gray castle-like structures. A river winds from the lower right between the buildings. A man rides a horse near the riverbank to our right, and the shore is lined with minuscule shells. To our left, a second man walks in the field, away from us toward the building, and another man crosses a short bridge over a second, smaller stream.

Bernat Martorell was one of the greatest painters in Catalonia, Spain, during the first half of the 15th century. Here, he rendered a frequently depicted episode from the popular legend of Saint George, in which the model Christian knight saves a town and rescues a beautiful princess. George’s halo and armor and the scaly dragon are richly modeled with raised stucco decoration.

The Martyrdom of Saint Justina

Dozens of light-skinned men and women gather around clusters of columns and sandstone-colored buildings that line a crimson-red river to our right in this horizontal painting. The center of the painting is dominated by a structure made up of three rows of three columns each, which hold up a flat-topped roof. A similar structure angles into the distance along the left edge of the painting. The columns of these two structures are carved with bands showing people separated by rings of vertical lines. The capitals are carved with stylized leaves. Just beyond the columns to our left, a blocky, rose-pink structure is carved with more people, seated or standing singly or in pairs. More rectangular, parchment-brown buildings extend into the distance along the water’s edge. The people gathered along the riverbank wear robes and tunics in deep blue or black, bright white, or saturated tones of cobalt blue, ruby red, or shell pink. Standing within the columns of the central structure, a crowned, bearded man wearing an emerald-green robe under a scarlet-red cloak gestures to our right, toward the red river. A woman nearby, wearing lapis blue and also crowned, watches with hands flung up as a person pours red liquid from a bucket. Most of the other people look or gesture toward the river, which winds in deep S-curves from the horizon line, which comes about two-thirds of the way up the composition, through sage-green fields, to the town. A single, white lightning bolt zigzags down from a white cloud in an otherwise navy-blue sky above.

Margaret of Austria

The Birth and Naming of John the Baptist

The Cathedral

Christ Carrying the Cross

Three men with crowns and wearing gold-trimmed robes stand and kneel before a woman sitting on a wooden, box-like seat holding a baby to our right, in front of a rocky cave and landscape, in this horizontal painting. A balding man with a gray beard and hair, Joseph, and two younger people with blond hair stand around the woman, Mary, to our right, while a group of five young men or boys and three horses gather near the left edge. All the people have pale skin. Mary, the baby Jesus, Joseph, and the three men closest to them all have shimmering gold halos. One balding man with a long white beard kneels and kisses the baby’s feet. He wears a gold and crimson-red brocade-like robe over a burgundy-red garment, and he holds a pointed gold crown in his right hand, which rests on the ground. Behind him and to our left, a younger man with curly blond hair and goatee, wearing a wine-red tunic belted with gold and a gold crown on his head, holds his hands in prayer as he kneels down on one knee. The third stands to our left, cleanshaven with long blond hair. He wears a fur-lined, thigh-length scarlet-red robe and a gold crown, and he holds up a gold vessel in one hand. To our right, Mary wears a lapis-blue robe that covers her head and falls to her feet. The baby is covered only by a white cloth across his hips, and he has short blond hair. He touches the kneeling man’s head with one hand. His body is pudgy but his face has more adult-like, delicate features. Joseph stands at the woman’s far shoulder, wearing a butter-yellow robe over a rose-pink garment. His hands are gathered on a walking stick in front of his chest and his brows are furrowed with deep lines. One of the two younger people behind Mary, to our right, holds a lidded gold vessel. The group of five attendants to our left gather around cream-white, gray, or chestnut-brown horses. These blond people wear garments of dark olive-green, coral-red, royal-blue, or rose-pink tunics over black stockings. The rocky, brown cave behind Mary and Jesus, to our right of center, is occupied by a donkey and an ox behind a wooden trough. The landscape beyond is segmented into quilt-like squares of stylized crops. The horizon line comes almost to the top edge of the panel beneath a narrow strip of vivid, cobalt-blue sky. A gold star like a sunburst with rays of light hovers over the woman and child.

A woman and winged angel, both with pale, peach skin, are situated in a church interior in this tall, narrow painting. To our left, the angel has long, blond, curly hair, smooth skin, and is smiling. The wings are outlined in royal blue, and they blend from blue to green to yellow to crimson. The angel holds one hand, closer to us, up at chest height with the index finger subtly pointing upward. Holding a long scepter in the other hand, the angel angles their body toward the woman to our right. The angel wears a gold jewel and pearl-encrusted crown and a jeweled long, voluminous robe in scarlet-red and shimmering gold brocade. The neck and along the opening down the front are lined with pearls and jewels. The angel looks toward the woman, who wears a royal-blue dress tied with a red belt at the high waist. Her long brown hair is tied back but one tendril falls over her left shoulder, to our right. She kneels facing us with her raised hands facing outward. Her head is tipped a bit to our left, and she looks up and into the distance to our right with lips slightly parted. She kneels behind a book lying open on a low table. A vase of white lilies and a red cushion lies on the floor in front of the table, close to us. The floor is decorated with people and scenes outlined in black and set into square panels, as if inlaid with wood. The church behind and above the people has a row of tall, narrow arches with bull’s-eye glass windows. A walkway lined with columns runs above the arches, and sunlight comes in through arched windows under the flat wood ceiling. A white dove flies toward the woman on gold lines from a window at the upper left of the painting. Latin words painted in gold capital letters are exchanged between the people. The angel says, “AVE GRA PLENA.” The letters of the woman’s response are painted upside down and backward: “ECCE ANCILLA DNI.”

Close to us, a bearded, balding man leads a donkey carrying a woman and child to our right against a hilly landscape in this horizontal painting. All three people have pale, peachy skin and halos. The man has a gray beard and hair, and wears a royal-blue tunic under a ruby-red robe. He leans on a walking stick and looks back at the donkey. The woman riding the donkey wears a blue and gold brocade-like cloak covering her head and body. She has a straight nose, small pink lips, and she looks toward the infant she holds close to her body. The baby wears a white garment and reaches for the woman’s face with one hand as he turns to look over his shoulder toward us. The path they walk on is lined with grass and detailed plants. A river runs parallel to the path a short distance away. The horizon line comes about two-thirds of the way up the painting is lined with green trees, blue mountains, and a few buildings to our left. Wispy white clouds sweep across an azure-blue sky streaked with peach near the horizon.

In the stone ruins of a building, a woman, Mary, kneels with her hands in prayer over a thin-limbed baby lying in front of her in this vertical painting. There is a man behind Mary, to our left, two more in a field to our right, and a winged angel in the upper right corner. They all have pale skin. Mary’s unbound blond hair falls over her shoulders. She wears a celestial-blue dress, and her teal-blue cloak is edged with gold. Her body is angled to our right, and she looks down her straight nose at the baby near her knees. The nude baby has blond curls and a chubby tummy and cheeks. An ox and an ass look down at the baby from behind a stone trough to our right. The man behind Mary wears a forest-green cap and scarf over a tomato-red robe. One hand rests on a staff, and he looks up at the angel in the top right corner. An owl looks down at the man from atop the stone ruins, near the top left corner. Two men recline and about a dozen white sheep lie on low hills in the near distance to our right. One of those men sleeps and the other holds up both hands as he looks into the sky. The angel in the top right corner emerges from a petal-pink and pale yellow halo against a star-strewn blue sky. The angel wears rose pink and has dark pink wings. A scroll held across both arms reads, “GLO” and “INECELSIS DEO.”

The victory of the Olympic gods over the ancient race of giants was a perfect subject for Wtewael to showcase exaggerated athletic poses and striking contrasts of space and light. Painted on copper, this small work almost appears gem-like. Wtewael's self-conscious display of skills was a hallmark of the international style known as Mannerism, which was fashionable in Holland around 1600.

Les Noces de Cana

Several people sit, stand, or stroll along a dirt road that winds from the lower left corner of this horizontal landscape painting into the distance, past trees and cottages under a vivid blue sky. The horizon line comes about a third of the way up the canvas, and the cloud studded, azure-blue sky fills the space above. Sunlight filtered through puffy white and steel-gray clouds illuminates the scene from the upper right, creating patches of light and shadow throughout. The road meanders through the center of the composition and is lined with dark and sage-green shrubs, scrubby growth, and gnarled, crooked trees. Closest to us and to our left, two tan cottages are tucked into deep shade created by a grove of several tall trees. The cottages have steeply pitched roofs and windows flanked by gray or brick-red shutters. Three people sit and stand near the path outside the closest building. A short distance to our right, a man sitting on a fallen log carries walking stick and a bundle on his back. His body faces us but his head is turned to our right to gaze toward the man and woman about to stroll past him, headed in our direction. The woman wears a black dress over a white skirt, and a white head covering and shawl. The man wears a brimmed hat with a red decoration, a brown coat with gold buttons down the front and a wide white collar, and heeled shoes. Beyond them, the road curves to our left around a small pond in front of the second cottage. Two people crouch to set a toy sailboat afloat by the edge of the pond, and a brown dog sniffs the ground nearby. Two more people stand talking at the doorway to the second cottage and another dog leaps up at the half-door. Further along the road, the light becomes stronger, illuminating a horse, rider, and another person walking alongside the horse. The road continues to curve around a butter-yellow cottage nestled in a grove of trees on the right. A sunny field is visible in the far distance.

Le Tricheur à l’as de carreau

St Fredianus Diverts the River Serchio

The Rabbit Hunt

Paris Street; Rainy Day

The Annunciation

In front of a crumbling stone building, an older man kneels in front of a second man, smaller in scale, hanging from a tall, wooden cross, with a city in the background in this vertical painting. Both men have pale skin. At the lower center of the composition, the kneeling man, Saint Jerome, pulls his navy-blue robe to one side to expose his muscular but slender bare chest with a bloody mark at its center. With his other hand, he holds a rounded, gray stone touched with pink, also suggesting blood, by his side. He has long, silvery-gray hair and a long, pointed beard. His pink lips are parted, and we see his teeth. He raises gray eyes to look up at the man on the slender cross, which rises along the left edge of the composition. The man on the cross brown hair, a plate-like gold halo, and a white loincloth is draped across his hips. The shell-pink ground is littered with rocks. A red hat with a shallow brim and a tasseled chin cord sits near Saint Jerome’s sandaled feet. A miniature lion lies between Saint Jerome and the arched opening of the crumbling, terracotta-red structure along the right edge of the painting. Ivy grows up one side of the arch, and an hourglass and book with a red cover and gold-edged pages sit on a white cloth under the opening. An owl perches on a branch of an oak tree growing from the front face of the structure, and a hawk sits on a branch of the fruit tree growing from the stone courtyard, between Saint Jerome and the crucifix. A shrub with dark green leaves and clusters of three olive-green fruits fills in most of the space beneath the canopy of the fruit tree. To our right and in the distance, a man with a pointed black hat, a black jacket, and white pants rides away from us on a gray horse. To our left, the courtyard gives way to an amphitheater-like space. There, next to a donkey, a man with a long white beard hands a bundle of wood or planks to another man whose brown hair is cut into a ring encircling his head. Both men wear rose-pink garments over navy-blue togas. A town with white and pale pink stone buildings rises up a hill into the distance. The sky above deepens from honeydew green along the horizon to pale then peacock blue along the top edge of the composition. A few ice-blue, white, and light gray clouds float across the sky.

A young girl stands next to and holds the hand of an elegantly dressed woman sitting in a wooden armchair near stone columns, in front of a crimson-red curtain pulled up to reveal a distant landscape view in this vertical portrait painting. The child and woman have smooth, light skin, and the fabric of their dresses has a silken sheen. To our right, the woman sits with her knees angled slightly to our left, and she looks at us with dark blue eyes under faint brows. Her brown hair is pulled back from her high forehead under a hair covering set with pearls. Her pointed chin is slightly pulled back, and her pale pink lips are closed. A teardrop-shaped pearl hangs from the ear we can see, and she wears two strands of pearls like a choker, above a thick, pleated lace ruff. The fabric of the long-sleeved bodice has a gold-on-gold pattern, and is lined with a row of buttons down the front. Filmy lace cuffs extend back over her forearms from her wrists. Her full, floor-length skirt is scarlet red with a gold, brocade-like pattern, and has silvery-gray stripes down the front and around the lower hem. The cloak she wears over the dress has a black-on-black floral pattern. Three thick gold chains hang across her bodice, and she wears a square-cut, gray stone set in a gold ring on the third finger of her left hand. To our left, the young girl stands next to the wooden arm of the chair and holds the woman’s hands with both of hers. The child looks at us with gray eyes, and her pale pink lips are parted in a slight smile. Her light brown hair is pulled back under a gray band, perhaps of fur, around her head, over an apricot-colored head covering that matches her dress. The tight-fitting, long-sleeved bodice is striped with bands of alternating gold and pink geometric designs against the apricot-peach background. A lace-edged collar lies across her shoulders. A red, oval pendant hangs from her three-standed pearl necklace, and she wears three pearl bracelets on one wrist. A thick gold chain falls across her chest and around one hip. The floor-length, full skirt has buttercup-yellow and shell-pink highlights on the coral-colored background. Behind the pair, the red curtain has been pulled up so it seems to flutter behind the woman’s head, in front of stone columns that frame a distant landscape view with trees. A blocky structure, presumably a building, sits on the far distant, hazy horizon. Light pours down in streaks from steel-gray clouds against a pale blue sky.

Shown from the shoulders up, a man with peachy skin looks off to our left as he holds the feathered end of an arrow up in a hand resting along the bottom edge of this vertical portrait painting. Shown against a marine-blue background, he looks into the distance with hazel eyes under bushy eyebrows. He has a long, bumped nose, and his full, pale pink lips are closed. His round cheeks are tinged with pink, and there is a hint of a five-o-clock shadow around his mouth and jawline. Chestnut-brown, curly hair hangs to the base of his neck, and wispy curls fall across his forehead from under his tall, chocolate-brown cap. The cap has a small gold pin high over the ear we can see. The man wears a garnet-red jacket with a black collar over a white collarless shirt decorated with five black, narrow bands below the neckline. The fingers of his right hand, to our left, rest with the fingertips braced along on the bottom edge of the painting, as if along a ledge. He pinches the shaft of an arrow with his index finger and thumb, so we see the sienna-brown feathers. He wears a gold ring embedded with a small blue gem near the first knuckle of his ring finger.

We look across a stream and through a loose screen of shadowy trees at a sunlit farm under a powder-blue sky with towering, puffy clouds in this vertical landscape painting. The ground and stream closest to us are painted in tones of olive green, sepia and earth brown, black, and slate gray. Nearly lost in shadow, a group of six people gathers at the water’s edge in the lower left. Small in scale within the composition, they wear brick-red, gray, or caramel-brown garments. Beyond them, a low picket fence winds through and between a loose band of shadowy trees, which are painted with gnarled, dark gray trunks and camel-brown, sage, and pine-green leaves. The trees to our left are closer and taller, while those to our right are a little farther away. The sun pours from the upper left into the field beyond. The farm buildings there have tan walls and sloping, peach-colored roofs. A few animals and people, smaller than the group in front, stand among the buildings, and more cottages can be glimpsed through a stand of trees on our right. The horizon line comes about a third of the way up the composition, and a church and steeple are silhouetted against the sky in the deep distance. A few birds fly in front of gray and white clouds that rise from the right side and spread across the top of the canvas.

Jean Hey, known as the Master of Moulins, was a leading painter in 15th-century France. Here, he captured the moment the archangel Gabriel announced to Mary that she would give birth to a son. The painting once formed the right side of an altarpiece, with the left side depicting Mary’s own Immaculate Conception and a central section, now lost, featuring the enthroned Virgin and Child.

Performance of Hanasaka Jiji, by Toshi, 1889, Meiji 21, from the Hood Museum of Art - PR.995.23.42abc.

The Submersion of Pharaoh's Army in the Red Sea

A young, bearded man wearing only a white loincloth stands facing us in a pale blue river with a man to one side and a winged angel to the other in this vertical painting. They all have pale or tanned skin and tawny-brown hair. The man at the center, Jesus, stands knee-deep in the placid water with his hands together in prayer. He looks off to our left, his hollow eyes set above a drooping mouth. To our left, a man kneels on the rocky riverbank and trickles water from his hand onto Jesus’s head. That man wears a fawn-brown robe under a raspberry-red cloak. He is bearded with curly brown hair, and he has dark circles under his eyes and a downturned mouth. The winged angel stands to our right on a flat stone, closer to us. Gold and pink wings rise vertically along the right edge of the composition. The angel wears voluminous white robes and holds a marine-blue garment in both hands. A white dove hovering over Jesus’s head is surrounded by a halo edged with teal, pea-green, and pink rings. A bearded man wearing a tiered, jeweled crown looks down from a round opening in the ice-blue sky above the dove. He holds one hand up in blessing and holds an orb topped by a cross in the other. About ten fish nibble at the rocks near Jesus’s feet in the river, which winds through a pale green field to a town of turrets and towers in the distance.

A Messenger is Dispatched: Page from a Dispersed Manuscript

The Battle of Waterloo

A Procession Scene with Musicians, from a copy of the Padshanama

Sceneries in the Tropical Land, by Imamura Shiko, Tokyo National Museum, Japan

The Entrance Hall of the Regensburg Synagogue

Shown from the hips up, a young boy with pale, peachy skin wears a voluminous, black cloak that nearly falls off his shoulders over a rose-pink tunic, with a sword hanging from one hip in this vertical portrait painting. His body is angled slightly to our right, and he looks off to our left with dark brown eyes under gently arched brows. He has a wide nose, and his pink lips are closed with the corners pulled slightly back. His skin is smooth and his cheeks slightly flushed. His dark brown hair is cut close and comes to a point in front of his ears. His tunic is painted with dusky pink highlights against wine-red to suggest a sheen across a vertically striped, leafy pattern. The garment has a high neck lined with a white ruffle and has a row of buttons down the front. His black coat has wide lapels that reach beyond his shoulders, and the puffy sleeves gather on his arms. The coat has a silvery-white cross over the chest to our right. The left and right arms of the cross are lost in the folds but the arms at the top and bottom are forked at the ends. The boy’s pine-green belt is edged with gold, and the hilt of the sword is angled toward us on his left hip, to our right. He holds one fawn-brown glove in his right hand, to our left, and his other arm disappears behind the folds of his coat. The background is deep olive green, almost brown. The artist signed the painting with dark paint near the right edge of the canvas near the boy’s shoulder, “TITANVS F.”

adoration of the Magi

The image shows an elevated view of a landscape with hills and a river or lake in the distance. Several buildings, including a church, are scattered across the land. Soldiers in red and white uniforms are lined up near a stone wall and gravestones in the foreground. The sky is blue with a few scattered clouds. The painting style uses precise brushstrokes, featuring a color palette of soft blues, greens, reds, and muted tones.

A view across a wide, brightly lit field scattered with broken pieces of stone is framed to the left and right by crumbling stone temples in this horizontal painting. The sunlight is infused with a soft pink glow, which warms the cream-white stone with a pale blush. The temple on our left sits on a low rise, and a row of at least nine columns topped with an entablature faces our right. Several of the columns are broken off, and part of the entablature and the entire roof is missing, from what we can see. Fragments of pediments and wheel-like sections of columns tumble down from its front steps and back along its side, cascading into and across most of the field before us. The rocky terrain is carpeted in celery-green growth speckled with sage green and areas of rust red in the lower left and right corners. Barely visible in the center of the field, are two men, barely taller than the fragments they inspect. One man wears an apricot-orange suit and bowler hat over blond hair. He kneels with his back to us as he writes or sketches on a piece of paper. A second man stands to his right, also with his back to us, dressed in a long pleated, white tunic with a red cap, jacket, and knee-high boots. To our right and farther back than the other temple, a brick-red tower stands next to another columned arcade. A third temple there, or perhaps another part of that building complex, has columns carved into the shape of six identical, robed women, facing our left. Beyond the ruins, the field slopes down to a peach-colored plain that ends at a wide, topaz-blue body of water with mountains in the far distance along the low horizon line. A petal-pink haze rises from the water and mountains and almost fills the blue-gray sky above. The artist has signed and dated the painting in the lower left, “S.R. Gifford 1880.”

Rectangular plots of flowers, each in a single color, stretch toward us below a sky nearly filled with cream-white clouds in this horizontal landscape painting. Together, the monochromatic plots create the impression of a patchwork quilt, with large areas of pale pink, butter yellow, bright white, and baby blue. A person walks across the plots to our right. The horizon line comes almost halfway up the painting and is lined with dark brown houses with tall, pitched roofs. Two barren trees twist into the cloudy sky. The loose, short, parallel brushstrokes and touches of paint create a soft, hazy effect.

Der Auszug der Römer aus Vicenza

About three dozen people gather in a grassy field to either side of a crumbling structure to kneel and pray before a woman and baby in the center of this horizontal painting. The woman, Mary, and baby, Jesus, have smooth, pale skin while the others have light or tanned skin. The structure has sand-colored stone pillars, a wooden triangular, pitched roof, and a straw floor. Mary, who has an elongated torso, sits facing us with her knees apart. She wears an azure-blue robe over a rose-pink dress. A shell-pink veil covers her head and body. Jesus sits on her left knee, his pudgy body angled to our left. He is nude except for a transparent cloth wrapped over one shoulder and the opposite hip. Mary’s left hand braces his torso. On Mary’s right, our left, Joseph, an older man, stands facing us. He clasps his hands at his chest and leans on a long stick. He has wrinkled skin, long, gray curly hair, and a full beard. Both Mary and Joseph tilt their heads to their right, our left, as they look down at Jesus. Joseph wears a golden yellow robe over a blue tunic. Joseph, Mary, and Jesus have faint gold halos. Behind them, a brown cow and gray donkey rest on the straw. People closest to Mary and Jesus kneel and bow their heads while the people to the left and right sides mostly stand. Three men kneeling closest to Mary and Jesus offer gifts, including a bronze vessel and a gold jar. One man has long dark brown hair and a beard, and wears a gold crown. Another man is bald with long gray hair and beard, while the third is cleanshaven with shoulder-length brown hair. These men wear robes in powder blue, carnation pink, or celery green with delicate silver and gold embelishments. Others in the crowd range in age from young and cleanshaven to older and bearded. They wear robes and tunics in shades of raspberry pink, butterscotch yellow, lapis blue, plum purple, or forest green. Several horses, their coats white or cinnamon brown, stand among the crowd, a few with riders. To our right, one horse rears its head and two others stand facing each other. Beyond the crowd, grassy green meadows and hills dotted with trees lead back to the horizon. A pale blue sky fills the top third of the composition.

We look across and down at a channel of water separating two landmasses labeled "Boston" and "Charles Town" in this horizontal landscape painting. Four three-masted ships are in the aquamarine-blue harbor between us and the land. Three of them have their sails unfurled and smoke billows from the broad, starboard side of each. Tidy rows of brown houses line the area of Boston. A puff of white smoke rises from the farthest point. Two arrow-shaped missiles, perhaps projectiles on fire, arc toward Charles Town, where billowing gray plumes of smoke rise from vivid orange fire on the far side of the landmass. Rowboats bring soldiers to the shore of Charles Town, close to where hundreds of soldiers line up and fire at each other. Much of the rest of Charles Town is a hill leading to sheer cliffs to our right. Tan and gray-colored smoke mixes among bright white clouds against a pale blue sky on the top half of the painting.

The Fitting Room

Cabinet Decorated with Episodes from the Parable of the Prodigal Son

Gezicht op bolwerk Westerbeer

The Holy Family

BELLINI, Giovanni St Jerome Reading in the Countryside Oil on wood, 151 x 113 cm Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

This painting depicts a coastal scene with a perspective from the water. There are dark, billowing gray clouds above the horizon, and the sky is pale orange. Below, large sailboats are on the dark water, as well as some smaller rowboats and a few pieces of driftwood. The water reflects the ships and the colors of the sky. On the left is a low stone building on a bit of green land, and there is a green hill in the distance on the right, covered with houses and small buildings.

A woman wearing a cobalt-blue robe and a white veil sits with her hands raised, palms out, as she looks toward a slender, bearded man who stands to our left in this vertical painting. Both have light skin and delicate features, and they sit in a room with stone walls and arched windows. There are faint circles under the woman’s light brown eyes. She has a long slender nose, and her pink lips are pursed. One knee is bent, and she is low to the ground, suggesting she sits on a stool. A book lies open on a wooden stand in front of her to our right, below her left elbow. The ruffled edges of her multi-layered, white veil sweep over her forehead and down to her shoulders. Her loose, long-sleeved blue garment is edged with gold and falls in angular folds to pool at her feet. She holds her long-fingered, slender hands up at her chest, palms facing the man to our left. He stands with his body angled toward her as he looks down, his head tipped slightly forward. His brown hair falls over his shoulders. His voluminous, gold-edged, red cloak is fastened at his throat with a gold, jeweled brooch, and it drapes over his shoulders and around his lower torso, leaving his arms, chest, and a gash over his right ribs exposed. He holds a tall, gold staff topped with a jeweled cross in his left hand, to our right. A moss-green pennant flutters back from the base of the cross, as if lifted in a breeze. The man holds up his other hand so the palm faces the woman with the first two fingers raised. Round, puncture wounds with red blood mark the palm of that hand and tops of both bare feet. The floor is patterned with gray, brown, blue, and green tiles. The wall behind the woman has honey-brown paneling along the bottom half and the top half is slate gray. Gray columns are spaced along that wall, supporting a curving, vaulted ceiling. Two arched windows pierce the wall behind the woman, and both have stained glass designs within the curving tops. The window closer to us opens onto a narrow view of a landscape with a rose-pink arch over a bridge, and a path winding through green fields. An open door over the shoulder of the man, to our left, shows the stepped roofline of a pink building under a blue sky. The entire scene is framed with a flattened arch supported by gleaming columns of polished, veined brown stone, creating the impression that we look onto the people and room through the arch. The columns have leafy capitals and white bases. The tan-colored arch is carved with a row of stylized rosettes along the opening that spans the top of the painting.

The Circus

Venus Reclining in a Landscape

Madonna of the Cat

This painting is a portrait of a seated woman, her body turned slightly to the right and her head looking towards us. She has a fair complexion, with round, rosy cheeks, pale eyebrows, large green eyes, and thin pink lips in a neutral expression. Her light blonde hair is styled in short curls close to her head and adorned with pearls and a clip or barrette in the shape of small leaves. She is dressed in a cream-colored dress with intricate embroidery in shades of brown, gold, and black. On top of the dress is a long black garment that flows over her shoulders and upper arms and has a high collar, decorative buttons, and more embroidery. Her gown is paired with a ruffled white collar and lace at her neckline and wrists. Long gold chains drape across her chest, and she wears a pearl necklace around her neck and two small golden rings on her fingers. In her left hand, our right, she holds a small book, while a lace handkerchief is in her right hand, our left. She wears pearl earrings, strands of pearl bracelets, and a decorative brooch in the shape of a white dog with a pink bow. The seat she sits on is wooden with dark red cushions decorated with golden tassels and embroidery, behind her on the left is a draped green cloth, and on the right, a table is covered with music sheets, a stringed instrument, books, and small blue and yellow ribbons. The wall behind the table is brown, and there is some gold lettering in the top right corner.

Alexander the Great Enthroned at Persepolis

Maharana Amar Singh II with Ladies of the Zenana outside the Picture Hall at Rajnagar

A man stands and a woman sits near a herd of seven cows under a light-drenched sky in this horizontal landscape painting. The herd gathers on a grassy rise just beyond some large boulders and twiggy branches. The cows are caramel or copper brown and ivory white. They stand and lie, legs tucked demurely beneath their hulking bodies, facing different directions, their short horns curling like parentheses against the sky. The man stands on our side of the herd with his back to us to the left of center. He holds a tall shepherd’s staff in one hand as he hunches slightly and points with the other, to our right. He wears a high-crowned, wide-brimmed black hat, a crimson-red jacket, black trousers, and black knee-high boots. A knapsack hangs across one shoulder and rests behind his left hip. The woman sits on the far side of the herd so we see her under the man’s raised arm. She looks at him, her face peachy and round under a wide-brimmed straw-colored hat. She wears a white shirt under a robin’s egg-blue dress, and also holds a tall staff upright with both hands. Two more pale-skinned people sit on the ground or on a donkey in the near distance to our right, near the right edge of the canvas. Both wear hats and earth-toned clothing in black, gray, and blue. The donkey stands facing us, its face low, and a pair of baskets are slung across its back. The people and cattle cast long shadows from the setting sun, out of view to our left. The sunset ignites the undersides of the towering, slate-gray clouds with peach and gold against the ice-blue sky. A body of water stretches from beyond the low hill to a distant shore, where stone ruins are outlined on the horizon, which comes about a third of the way up the composition. A flock of six birds and another pair dot the sky.

A young, pale-skinned woman with long, blond hair and wearing a coral-red gown stands on a pedestal before a landscape filled with people in this vertical painting. The painting has an arched top, and the woman who fills most of the view is Claudia Quinta. Her hair is adorned with strands of pearls, and a larger pearl hangs from a piece of jewelry like a brooch at the top center over her forehead. A sheer veil covers the back of her head. Her body faces us but she turns her head slightly to our right, so she gazes at us from the corners of her light hazel eyes. A pearl necklace with a square gold, sapphire-blue jewel and pearl pendant encircles her neck. The brown sleeves of her dress are flecked densely with short gold lines, and white fabric shows at gaps over the elbows. The red bodice has a high waist tied with a brown belt, which also holds sheer fabric in place so it falls to her knees over the long red skirt. The skirt is bordered with a gold geometric design along the bottom hem, which stops just short of her sandaled feet. In her right hand, on our left, she holds a small, navy-blue boat with a gold figure standing in it. Her other hand rests by her left thigh, to our right. She balances near the front edge of the rectangular pedestal, which is pale violet purple. On the front face, two winged, chubby children are painted white to resemble stone carvings. They brace a panel bordered in gold. The plaque has a teal-blue background, and gold letters read, “CLAVDIA CASTA FVI NEC VVLGVS CREDIDIT AMEN ET TAMEN ID QVOD ERAM TESTIS MIHI PRORA PROBAVIT CONSILIVM ET VIRTVS SVPERANT MATERQVE DEORVM ALMA PLACET POPVLO ET PER ME HVNC ORATA TVETVR.” Beyond Claudia Quinta a river winds in a tight S-curve through dark green hills. Farther back, to our left, a group of people with thin, elongated bodies dressed in blue, light brown, and orange walk in front of a tall dark blue building as they head toward a river on the right side. The building has an arched opening and a tower topped with a taupe-brown spire. To our right of Claudia Quinta, a woman wearing a rose-pink dress holds a rope around the prow of a boat at the edge of the river. Like the boat held by Claudia Quinta, it is navy blue and has the same shape. The pale lavender-purple river continues into the distance, where it meets rocky outcroppings along the horizon, which comes about halfway up the composition. A pale blue sky above is filled with wispy bands of clouds.

The Adoration of the Magi

Gedicht op de zilveren bruiloft van Ludolph Simon de With en Maria de Wit, 15 augustus 1771

The Triumph of Fame

The Sampling Officials of the Amsterdam Drapers’ Guild, Known as ‘The Syndics’

Twenty-one men in long waistcoats and women in elegantly trimmed gowns gather and dance within a verdant landscape in this horizontal painting. The men wear jackets and breeches in ginger brown, pale pink, or spruce blue. The women’s gowns have full sleeves, tight-fitting bodices, and full skirts in shades of bronze, teal blue, butterscotch gold, or rich pink edged with ribbons and lace. Some of them wear floral wreaths or ribbons in their upswept hair. Groups gather around a woman and man who dance together to our left in the scene. Some in the group of onlookers to our left hold musical instruments, including a violin and a pipe. Another group is nestled among trees just beyond the dancers, at the center of the painting, and more sit and stand to our right. The dancing woman wears a gleaming, ice-blue gown with rows of flowers in muted pink, blue, and gold down the full skirt and around the bottom hem, which falls short of her thin ankles. More garlands cross her chest and shoulders, and flowers are tucked into her dark gray hair. She faces us with her head turned to our right as she looks off in that direction with dark eyes under curving brows. She has a delicate nose, rosy, round cheeks, and pink lips. She holds her arms spread wide with the thumb touching the index finger of each hand. The man with whom she dances wears a coral-red tunic and breeches with sleeves decorated with pale pink and blue ribbons. The brim of his brown hat is turned up. His body faces us but he turns his head to look at the woman, his lips parted. The man and woman each have one gracefully pointed foot raised. The dancers and groups are enclosed within a park-like setting with tall trees to either side, and a screen of trees across the back of the space. The trees have slender trunks and canopies in shades of pine, sage, and moss green. Near the back middle of the scene, a stone column topped by a human head wearing a wreath of laurel leaves rises above the central group. A fountain with a vertical jet of water is tucked into the shadows within a grove of trees along the right edge of the painting. The water falls into a pool in the lower right corner.

Coronation of the Virgin

A pale-skinned young girl leaning over a low fence and holding a broom gazes in our direction in this vertical painting. Her red hair is pulled back from her round face, and she has large hazel eyes under thin brows, a petite nose, and her coral-red mouth is slightly open. She is shown from the chest up, behind a wooden partition that spans the width of the painting. She wears a loose, ivory-white shirt under a garment with pumpkin-orange straps on the shoulders and chest. She leans forward with her elbows hooked over the partition as she holds a long-handled broom to her chest. A wooden pail with a bronze handle is overturned to the right of the broom. A blocky brown object to our left is difficult to make out. A dark brown semicircular object close to us in the center of the composition resembles the mouth of a well. Soft light from the upper left illuminates the girl and the left side of the caramel-brown wall behind her and throws the right side into shadow. A signature near the lower left looks like it had been painted on the inner edge of the well. It reads, “Rembrandt f. 1651.”

Adorazione dei Magi. Il Redentore, i Profeti Isaia e David (nelle cuspidi) 1420 circa

A rutted, dirt road curves from the bottom center of the canvas toward and behind a grove of tall trees to our left, beneath a pale blue sky with fluffy white clouds that fills the top two-thirds of this horizontal landscape painting. The broad, green canopies of the trees to our left create deep shade over twisting trunks, shrubs, and grasses. A narrow stream meandering alongside the road to our left reflects the moss, pine, and sage greens of the leaves. The land rises in a sloping bank to our right, and leads back to open fields with hedgerows that stretch to the horizon. Shorter, more spindly trees cluster along the bank in the distance. Tiny in scale, people are sprinkled throughout the landscape, either singly or in small groups. In the shade of the grove to our left, a man with dark pantaloons, a brown hat and coat, and a walking stick strolls along the road with a woman wearing a red skirt, a dark shirt, and a white apron and cap. Just off the curve of the road to our right, another man with a walking stick, tan hat, and dark gray pantaloons talks to a woman also wearing red, black, and white. Another person, slightly smaller in stature, stands between them. At a pond farther back from this trio, a man with a broad-brimmed hat sits fishing at the edge of the water. Barely visible, a house with a pitched roof, a tall, brick-red chimney, and a white picket fence peeks out from behind the trees beyond the pond. Finally, a man wearing a rust-orange coat, gray pantaloons with white stockings, and a tall hat, carrying a pole propped on his shoulder, walks toward us on a footpath running alongside the fields. Tall, cream-white clouds dot the pale blue sky above, and tiny dots of dark paint suggest flying birds. Soft sunlight pours across the countryside. The artist signed and dated the painting in small script in the lower right corner: “meijndert Hobbema F 1663.”

Shown from the knees up, a pale-skinned woman sits in front of a vast landscape and holds a nude baby boy on her lap in this horizontal painting. The woman, Mary, sits with her knees angled to our left, but she looks at us from the corners of brown eyes. She has a delicate nose, smooth cheeks, a pointed chin, and her pink lips are closed. A few strands of blond hair escape from braids that overlap across the top of her head. She wears a rose-red dress over a translucent white undergarment, which is visible along the neckline and on the forearms. A cloth striped with azure and powder blue, pale pink, lemon yellow, and teal drapes across her seated thighs and wraps back around her hips. One hand rests in her lap near one of the baby’s feet, and the other braces the child’s other hip. The baby, Jesus, has tightly curled blond hair and a flushed face. His body resembles a somewhat muscular adult. Jesus rests his shoulders back against the woman’s chest and turns to look up at her. One hand touches one of her breasts and the other holds a butterfly by its parchment-yellow wings. The foot not by the woman’s hand rests on a gold dagger near the woman’s far hip. A gnarled tree with dark green leaves winds from a rocky crag to our left. The pair are lit from our left, and Mary casts a shadow on the large, flat boulder on which she sits. The land dips steeply down beyond the boulder. A man wearing a pale pink garment that flaps in the wind stands on a rocky outcropping near a grazing animal. Tiny in scale, three more people walk or run in the distance to our right. Stone structures are tucked in among tree-dotted hills that roll gently back to a hazy blue, mountainous horizon, which comes about five-sixths of the way up this composition. The sky above is a similar icy blue.

Madonna and Child