Floor plan

Style galleriesNeoclassicism

Neoclassicism

A work made of oil on canvas.
A sliver of land across the bottom of this composition gives way to a procession of puffy gray and white clouds sweeping up across a vivid blue, panoramic sky in this horizontal landscape painting. An area of darker gray beyond the brown land could be a valley, mountain, or shadows from the billowing clouds. About one-fifth of the way up the composition, the horizon glows the faintest peach. The clouds trundle from our left up and to our right. The view is loosely painted, especially in the land.
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.
DESIGNS FOR ORNAMENTAL ARABESQUE MOTIFS
Shown from the waist up in front of a black background, a young woman with pale white skin and curly brown hair looks directly out at us over her shoulder with her body angled to our left in this vertical portrait. She has dark brown eyes, a straight nose, smooth skin, and her pink lips are closed. Curls fall across her forehead but the rest of her hair is pulled up under a white lace scarf, called a mantilla. The mantilla is tucked under the wide orange and black shawl wrapped around her shoulders. She clasps her hands at her waist, and her hands and forearms are covered with long white gloves that disappear under the shawl.
MARTYRDOM OF ST. ANDREW
This oval painting depicts a cherubic child in a garden setting. The child is standing with one foot in front of the other and has small wings on their back. The child has light skin, curly blond hair, rosy cheeks, and a playful expression. They are mostly nude, except for a cloth that wraps around their back and covers their groin. The child is holding a golden arrow. They are standing in front of a light green bush with pink flowers. In the bottom left, there is a dark blue object in the green grass that looks like a torch or cylindrical quiver. The setting includes lush greenery and more clusters of pink and white flowers. The background features a pastel blue sky with soft pink clouds and two white doves flying above.

The works in this room are listed below.

Works in this room

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

First room, north wall

  1. A work made of oil on canvas.
    The Destruction of Pharaoh's ArmyPhilippe Jacques de Loutherbourg, II, 1792Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago
  2. A sliver of land across the bottom of this composition gives way to a procession of puffy gray and white clouds sweeping up across a vivid blue, panoramic sky in this horizontal landscape painting. An area of darker gray beyond the brown land could be a valley, mountain, or shadows from the billowing clouds. About one-fifth of the way up the composition, the horizon glows the faintest peach. The clouds trundle from our left up and to our right. The view is loosely painted, especially in the land.
    Study of Clouds over the Roman CampagnaPierre Henri de Valenciennes, c. 1782/1785Courtesy 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

First room, south wall

  1. DESIGNS FOR ORNAMENTAL ARABESQUE MOTIFS
    Designs for Ornamental Arabesque MotifsEtienne de Lavallée-Poussin, 1770Courtesy of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
  2. Shown from the waist up in front of a black background, a young woman with pale white skin and curly brown hair looks directly out at us over her shoulder with her body angled to our left in this vertical portrait. She has dark brown eyes, a straight nose, smooth skin, and her pink lips are closed. Curls fall across her forehead but the rest of her hair is pulled up under a white lace scarf, called a mantilla. The mantilla is tucked under the wide orange and black shawl wrapped around her shoulders. She clasps her hands at her waist, and her hands and forearms are covered with long white gloves that disappear under the shawl.
    Señora Sabasa GarciaFrancisco Goya, c. 1806/1811Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington
  3. MARTYRDOM OF ST. ANDREW
    Martyrdom of St. AndrewFrancesco Coghetti, 1825–50Courtesy of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
  4. This oval painting depicts a cherubic child in a garden setting. The child is standing with one foot in front of the other and has small wings on their back. The child has light skin, curly blond hair, rosy cheeks, and a playful expression. They are mostly nude, except for a cloth that wraps around their back and covers their groin. The child is holding a golden arrow. They are standing in front of a light green bush with pink flowers. In the bottom left, there is a dark blue object in the green grass that looks like a torch or cylindrical quiver. The setting includes lush greenery and more clusters of pink and white flowers. The background features a pastel blue sky with soft pink clouds and two white doves flying above.
    Love the SentinelJean Honoré Fragonard, c. 1773/1776Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington

Second room, south wall

  1. A young woman with light skin stands in a garden, wearing a voluminous, full-length, silvery, shimmering gown in this vertical portrait painting. Her body faces us, as she looks into the distance to our left. She has rosy cheeks, gray-green eyes under gently arched, light brown brows, and her coral-pink, thin, closed lips curve in a slight smile. Her ash-brown hair is pulled back and adorned with tiny shell-pink and azure-blue flowers along the left side top of head, to our right. A pleated lace ruffle encircles her smooth neck. Her gown is parchment white where the light glints off the stiff fabric and is silvery gray in the shadows, creating a silk-like sheen. The dress is cut low across the chest, fits tightly around her narrow waist, and has puffy sleeves tied at the elbows with topaz-blue bows. Another blue bow is tied at her chest, and the ends wrap around her back along her waist. A corsage at her left shoulder, to our right, is a profusion of white flowers around a pale pink rose. In her other hand, to our left, she holds a straw hat with a shallow crown and a wide brim, trimmed with sky-blue ribbon. The arm holding the hat is nearly engulfed in the deep folds of her full skirt. She holds a pink rose in her other hand, which rests on the lip of a shiny, copper-colored urn filled with pink flowers and delicate green leaves. On that wrist she wears a bracelet with four strands of white pearls holding a cameo. She stands on a pale, dirt ground. A teal-blue bench in the lower left corner of the painting is tucked into sage-green shrubbery. Sprigs of pink roses are strewn across the seat and on the ground. The woman is framed to either side with olive and celery-green trees and vegetation, which blend into the hazy distance beyond her head.
    Madame BergeretFrançois Boucher, possibly 1766Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington
  2. 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
  3. Marie Emilie Coignet de Courson (1716–1806) with a Dog, by Jean Honoré Fragonard, ca. 1769
    Marie Emilie Coignet de Courson (1716–1806) with a DogJean Honoré Fragonard, ca. 1769Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Second room, north wall

  1. A work made of conté crayon on gray-blue wove paper.
    Landscape with HaystacksConstant Troyon, n.d.Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago
  2. Small painting, friar shoots man with yellow pants as horse runs off.
    Friar Pedro Shoots El Maragato as His Horse Runs OffFrancisco Goya, c. 1806Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago
  3. A woman with pale skin, wearing a silvery-gray dress adorned with white ribbons and light pink roses, stands looking out at us with a small, pug dog by her feet in this vertical portrait painting. The woman’s body is angled slightly to our right but she looks at us with dark eyes under faint, arched brows. Her nose is rounded, her cheeks smooth and flushed, and her pale pink lips are closed. Her face is framed in a cloud of nickel-gray hair, and tendrils curl down over her shoulders. She wears a wide-brimmed straw hat with a white ribbon set on the back of her head and slightly off to one side. The bodice of her dress has a low, curving neck. This area is loosely painted to create the impression of layers of lace. A band of intertwined pale pink roses and delicate green leaves borders the outer edge of the lace. The dress has long, tight sleeves with lace at the cuffs and the notably narrow waist is tied with a blush-pink ribbon. The full, silver skirt is picked up to create a row of puffs, like the top of a muffin, around her knees. Bunches of pink roses and white ribbons are nestled into the puffs, and below, the skirt falls in long, vertical pleats to her ankles. She wears white stockings and pointed, petal-pink shoes. In her left arm, on our right, she holds a closed fan loosely at her side, almost lost behind the skirt. She holds a pink carnation with a full bloom and a bud on a long, curving stem in her other hand, by her hip. A caramel-brown pug with a black face, wearing a pink collar lined with three bells, stands facing us with one front paw lifted, to our right of the woman's feet. The landscape is painted in tones of mint and sage green for grass beneath trees enclosing the space the woman stands in, sand brown for the ground, and icy blue for the sky above.
    The Marquesa de PontejosFrancisco Goya, c. 1786Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington
  4. A work made of pen and brown ink, with traces of graphite, on tan wove paper, laid down on cream wove paper.
    Sketches of Algerian MenEugène Delacroix, c. 1832Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago

Third room, north wall

  1. The image shows a rustic scene with a house, trees, and a figure washing near a stream. Two children stand in the middle distance next to a ladder. In the background are two thatched houses among trees. The drawing style is detailed with fine lines and cross-hatching, creating texture. The color palette is monochromatic in shades of black and gray, emphasizing light and shadow.
    A Fisherman and Two Children in a Landscape with Thatched CottagesSalomon Gessner, 1764Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington
  2. Cupid and Psyche, by Jacques-Louis David, 1817
    Cupid and PsycheJacques-Louis David, 1817Courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art