Ochre Editions
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Neoclassicism

Europe turns back to Greece and Rome: clear line, calm figures and civic virtue.

109 works · hang 1947 ·

The rooms are imagined; every work on their walls is real.

Walk this roomRehang this room

First room, north wall

  1. MARTYRDOM OF ST. ANDREW
    Martyrdom of St. AndrewFrancesco Coghetti, 1825–50Courtesy of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
  2. Portrait of white man dressed in all black with medallion and sword.
    Amédée-David, the Comte de PastoretJean Auguste Dominique Ingres, 1823–26Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago
  3. This oval painting shows a cherubic child floating mid-air with one leg bent and their arms outstretched. The cherub has curly hair, a round face, and pale skin dusted with rosy pink and light teal shadows. They are smiling gently. The cherub is nude with a draped cloth over one shoulder, and in one hand they hold a flaming torch. Surrounding the cherub are white birds in flight. The background consists of pale blue and soft white clouds, with blooming pink flowers and foliage on the pale green ground.
    Love as FollyJean Honoré Fragonard, c. 1773/1776Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington

First room, south wall

  1. We look up through an opening surrounded by a stone ledge, with clusters of people and clouds swirling into a blue sky up and away from us in this vertical, rectangular painting. From a distance, the scene looks like a complete illusion but up close, the people, clouds, and architecture are sketchily painted. The ledge running around the opening has a gold, oval medallion at each corner. Appearing to be carved from white stone, two bearded men with long hair recline against each medallion, flanking them to each side in front of large shells that curve up over the people and frames them. A few architectural structures extend up into the sky, including a pointed obelisk in the lower left corner, a pair of columns at the upper right, and what seems to be the mast of a ship at the top left. Most of the people have pale skin but some have more tan complexions, and a few, including those wearing feather headdresses near the upper left corner, have brown skin. The people wear windswept robes of pale, butter yellow, robin’s egg blue, rose pink, and ivory. The eye may drawn to a few vignettes, such as the man holding a rearing, chestnut-brown horse on the illusionistic ledge near the lower right, a nun wearing a white robe and holding a cross above him in the clouds, and, farthest away, a crowned person sitting on a throne.
    Wealth and Benefits of the Spanish Monarchy under Charles IIIGiovanni Battista Tiepolo, 1762Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington
  2. Manuel Osorio Manrique de Zuñiga (1784–1792), by Francisco Goya, 1787–88
    Manuel Osorio Manrique de Zuñiga (1784–1792)Francisco Goya, 1787–88Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
  3. A work made of etching in black on ivory laid paper.
    Portrait of Le Roi MaratViller, c. 1795Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago

Second room, south wall

  1. Portrait of a Boy, ca. 1800
    Portrait of a BoyUnrecorded Italian maker, ca. 1800Courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum
  2. A work made of handcolored etching in black on cream laid paper.
    The Grotto of Posillipo (La Grotta di Posillipo)Louis Jean Desprez, 1785/90Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago
  3. A Forest with Apollo and Daphne, by Jean-Victor Bertin, 1810
    A Forest with Apollo and DaphneJean-Victor Bertin, 1810Courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art
  4. A work made of soft ground etching, with roulette, printed in red on white wove paper.
    Portrait of a Man in an Armchair, from Collection d'imitations de Dessins d'après les Principaux Maîtres Hollandais et FlamandsChristian Josi, 1826Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago

Second room, north wall

  1. Condesa de Altamira and Her Daughter, María Agustina, by Francisco Goya, 1787–88
    Condesa de Altamira and Her Daughter, María AgustinaFrancisco Goya, 1787–88Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
  2. La Cervara, the Roman Campagna, by Jean Baptiste Camille Corot, c. 1830–31
    La Cervara, the Roman CampagnaJean Baptiste Camille Corot, c. 1830–31Courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art
  3. A work made of etching, aquatint, drypoint and burin on ivory laid paper.
    Pedro Romero killing the halted bull, plate 30 from The Art of BullfightingFrancisco Goya, 1814/16, published 1816Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago

Third room, north wall

  1. Overdoor Painting, by Pierre Rousseau, 1790s
    Overdoor PaintingPierre Rousseau, 1790sCourtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art
  2. The painting depicts three children within an oval frame, their upper bodies visible. The central child, a young girl, is positioned with her body facing forward and her head turned slightly to the left. She has a fair complexion, with rosy cheeks, pink lips, and wide brown eyes. Her hair is gray and partially pulled back by a blue ribbon. She is dressed in a white garment with a yellow shawl draped over her shoulders. Her arms are outstretched, holding the ends of a cloth that has been pinned on her dress. Her arms and the cloth extend forward beyond the oval frame that encircles the trio, as if the frame is a window or porthole that she is reaching out of. On the right, a boy leans on the girl's shoulder, also facing to the left, seen in profile. He has light brown, curly hair and a fair complexion. He wears a dark blue-green jacket over a white collar, and he is looking upward towards the third child. On the left, another boy, who also has light skin and light brown curly hair, appears to stand on a chair above the other two children. He is holding a long yellow straw up to his lips. At the other end of the straw, a large bubble hangs over the white cloth that the girl holds out. In his other hand is a small white dish. He wears a muted brown outfit with a dark cloth wrapped around him. The background within the frame is plain gray, and the frame that surrounds the children is light gray and appears to be carved with leaf designs. Beyond the oval frame is gray.
    Soap BubblesCharles Amédée Philippe Van Loo, 1764Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington
  3. Moonlight falls across several masted ships near a rocky shoreline in this horizontal painting. The sky fills the top three-quarters of the picture. A veil of slate-gray clouds is lit to pearl white around the crisp, full moon at the center of the composition. Patches of denim-blue sky are seen through breaks in the blanket of clouds. Moonlight reflects down the center of rippling, silvery-gray water that laps against a beach close to us, along the bottom edge of the painting. A tent is set up in the lower left corner of the composition. There, two women and one man stand looking at a glowing fire next to the tent. One woman holds a basket on her head, the other tucks a flat basket under one arm. The man stands between the two women, and a fourth man crouches near the fire, his back to us. In the opening of the tent, another woman kneels over a large bowl as she looks at the fire. A fifth person, a man, gazes at the fire as he sits smoking a long-stemmed pipe on a boulder. At the foot of the boulders, a man lies back against some bundles, one arm thrown up over his head. A dog curls up next to his hip. Not far from the sleeping man and in the center of the foreground, a man carries several long wooden objects, possibly oars, over one shoulder while a dog beyond him barks at the lapping surf. The beach curves like a C away from us, along the left. At the point of the curve in the middle distance, a structure like a city wall and gate jut out to the water’s edge. More buildings atop steep cliffs rise vertically beyond the gate. The shoreline curves into the distance again, and more buildings, including a lighthouse, and masted ships there are smoke-gray silhouettes. Near the lower right corner of the painting, four men pull on ropes tied around the prow of a small wooden boat while three others push it toward the land. Another man stands in the far end. A short distance beyond that boat is a tall wooden ship with three masts and rigging outlined against the night sky. Windows along the decks of that boat’s wide stern, angled toward us, glow with golden light. Beyond it and a bit to our left, another ship, smaller in scale, sails away from us. Several more ships move back to the horizon until we only see strokes of white and gray to indicate their unfurled sails.
    MoonlightClaude-Joseph Vernet, 1772Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington