Floor plan

Style galleriesPaintings of the 19th century

Paintings of the 19th century

Whalers, by Joseph Mallord William Turner, ca. 1845
Sunrise, by George Inness, 1887
Artist: Chester Harding, Sitter: Loammi Baldwin, Jr., Current owner: National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
Painted portrait dominated by loose, large brushstrokes of a woman, seen from the back, wearing a gauzy white off-the-shoulder dress and black choker, blond hair swept up, examining herself in a mirror at left. The background is a feathered swirl suggesting floral pattern in cool pale tones of gray, purple, pink, and blue.
Across a short stretch of sand in front of us, waves of bottle-green water break over two boulders on the shoreline, with sailboats in the water beyond, in this wide, horizontal painting. One boulder is at the left edge of the painting; the other is a short distance away, about a quarter of the way across. The water cascades down between those large rocks. Across the rest of the beach, the waves flare up to break toward us in white, foamy surf. The land curves back into view on both sides of the canvas with muted, sage-green hills and, to our left, dark green trees on more craggy boulders. A more distant finger of land to our left stretches nearly halfway across the horizon, which comes about halfway up the composition. Minuscule in scale there, smoke pours out of a chimney, which is surrounded by pale yellow buildings. A mound emerges from the horizon to our right of center. About ten sailboats float on the water. The closest one to us is near the center of the painting, and the tiny forms of people aboard can just barely be made out. The other boats become smaller as they move back to the horizon, and some are only a touch of white or gray on the canvas. White and pale lavender-purple clouds sweep up from the horizon into the sky, which glows butter yellow along the left edge. The sky cools to mint green in the upper right corner. Several white or brown birds fly across the sky or low over the water. The artist signed and dated the lower left, “M. J. Heade 1864.”

The works in this room are listed below.

Works in this room

Paintings made in the 19th century, from every museum.

Section 1, north wall

  1. Whalers, by Joseph Mallord William Turner, ca. 1845
    WhalersJoseph Mallord William Turner, ca. 1845Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
  2. Sunrise, by George Inness, 1887
    SunriseGeorge Inness, 1887Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
  3. Artist: Chester Harding, Sitter: Loammi Baldwin, Jr., Current owner: National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
    Loammi BaldwinChester Harding, 1823Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

Section 1, south wall

  1. Painted portrait dominated by loose, large brushstrokes of a woman, seen from the back, wearing a gauzy white off-the-shoulder dress and black choker, blond hair swept up, examining herself in a mirror at left. The background is a feathered swirl suggesting floral pattern in cool pale tones of gray, purple, pink, and blue.
    Woman at Her ToiletteBerthe Morisot, 1875–80Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago
  2. Across a short stretch of sand in front of us, waves of bottle-green water break over two boulders on the shoreline, with sailboats in the water beyond, in this wide, horizontal painting. One boulder is at the left edge of the painting; the other is a short distance away, about a quarter of the way across. The water cascades down between those large rocks. Across the rest of the beach, the waves flare up to break toward us in white, foamy surf. The land curves back into view on both sides of the canvas with muted, sage-green hills and, to our left, dark green trees on more craggy boulders. A more distant finger of land to our left stretches nearly halfway across the horizon, which comes about halfway up the composition. Minuscule in scale there, smoke pours out of a chimney, which is surrounded by pale yellow buildings. A mound emerges from the horizon to our right of center. About ten sailboats float on the water. The closest one to us is near the center of the painting, and the tiny forms of people aboard can just barely be made out. The other boats become smaller as they move back to the horizon, and some are only a touch of white or gray on the canvas. White and pale lavender-purple clouds sweep up from the horizon into the sky, which glows butter yellow along the left edge. The sky cools to mint green in the upper right corner. Several white or brown birds fly across the sky or low over the water. The artist signed and dated the lower left, “M. J. Heade 1864.”
    Rio de Janeiro BayMartin Johnson Heade, 1864Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington

Section 2, south wall

  1. Large painting of people in a crowded park, brushstrokes are dots.
    A Sunday on La Grande Jatte — 1884Georges Seurat, 1884–86, border added 1888–89Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago
  2. This painting shows a landscape with a horizon in the lower third of the composition. On the left side of the painting, there are tall trees along a canal. In the center is a dirt path on the other edge of the canal, with a person riding a donkey who looks over their shoulder towards us. On the right side, there are white buildings in the distance, with a grassy field leading towards them. The light blue sky is filled with fluffy clouds, and the water of the canal reflects the sky and trees. The brushstrokes of the painting are thick and visible, especially in the sky.
    The TowpathJohan Barthold Jongkind, 1864Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington
  3. 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

Section 2, north wall

  1. Louis Eilshemius
    Spanish LadyLouis M. Eilshemius, 1889Courtesy of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution
  2. A light-skinned woman in a long, shiny white dress sits at a desk reading a book. The book is propped on a large red pillow. Her head is propped in her hand.
    Isabella WolffThomas Lawrence, 1803–15Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago
  3. A leafless, ash-white tree trunk has fallen from a broken stump into the wide V of a neighboring tree at the edge of a body of water near a verdant forest in this horizontal landscape painting. The fallen trunk creates a diagonal from near the lower left corner to the upper right. As it fell, it sheared off a substantial branch from a neighboring tree with a dark trunk. The bark where the damaged branch has pulled away is honey-orange, the same color as the leaves at the canopy, which has been pinned under the fallen trunk. Trees, vines, and other vegetation fill the space around and beyond this pair. In the lower right corner of the painting, vines grow over a broken stump, which deep in shadow. Between the stump and fallen tree, the peanut-brown surface of the water is smooth. Tiny in scale beneath the fallen tree and easily overlooked, there are two men and a dog in a boat. One man stands at the back of the boat and pushes it along with a long pole. He wears a tall, brown, cloth hat, a white shirt rolled up to the elbows under a blue vest, and loose-fitting pants. A second man wears a flat-topped, white hat with a black brim, a long, forest-green jacket, and tight-fitting slate-blue pants. He braces a rifle against one shoulder and shoots into the forest. The dog is white with brown spots, and it stands with its front paws on the edge of the boat, presumably ready to spring after the target. A patch of blue sky with puffy white clouds is seen above the trees in the upper left corner. The artist signed and dated the work in the lower right corner: “H. Vernet Rome 1833.”
    Hunting in the Pontine MarshesHorace Vernet, 1833Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington

Section 3, north wall

  1. Seventeenth Century Lady, by William Merritt Chase, ca. 1895
    Seventeenth Century LadyWilliam Merritt Chase, ca. 1895Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
  2. Impressionist sea landscape, tan houses, blue ocean, distant mountains.
    The Bay of Marseille, Seen from L'EstaquePaul Cézanne, c. 1885Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago
  3. Basket of Fruit, c. 1830
    Basket of FruitUnrecorded American maker, c. 1830Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington

Section 3, south wall

  1. Talking It Over, by Enoch Wood Perry, 1872
    Talking It OverEnoch Wood Perry, 1872Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
  2. Shown from the knees up, a young girl with pale skin, wearing a coral-peach dress, sits facing and looking at us in this loosely painted, vertical portrait. Her knees are angled slightly to our left, and her hands rest in her lap. She has a round face and smooth, lightly flushed cheeks. She has brown eyes under arched brows, a delicate, snub nose, and her rose-pink lips are closed. Her hair, which is painted with broad strokes of caramel brown and moss green, is parted on one side and pulled smoothly back, presumably tied behind her head. Tendrils fall over her shoulders. Her dress is gathered around her neck and tied with a bow at the back. The loose sleeves fall to just below her elbows, and the dress is belted around the waist. A curving swipe of canary-yellow paint could be a buckle at the front. The fabric of the dress is painted with long, visible strokes of shell and rose pink, butter yellow, and ivory white, and a few touches of sage green and periwinkle blue for shadows. She wears a ring on the middle finger of her right hand. The space around her is loosely painted with strokes of electric and cobalt blue, with unpainted canvas visible at some of the edges. To our left, over the girl's shoulder, a wooden bird cage holds an emerald-green parakeet. The bird is streaked with royal blue along its back, and the area around its hooked beak is apple red. The cage has a mint-green bow and ribbon along the top. The artist signed the painting in green on the lower right corner: “Berthe Morisot.”
    The Artist's Daughter with a ParakeetBerthe Morisot, 1890Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington