Ochre Editions
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The Rotunda

The entrance hall. Its bays hold the works that show each museum at its fullest: large paintings first, a few from each collection, rehung every day.

30 works · hang 6748 ·

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

Walk this roomRehang this room

Bay 1

  1. Painting of four women with blue shawls walking near red fence.
    Arlésiennes (Mistral)Paul Gauguin, 1888Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago
  2. Painting
    Ancestral group of Mughal rulersGovardhan, 18th centuryCourtesy of the National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian Institution

Bay 2

  1. Elizabeth Shewell West and Her Son, Raphael, by Benjamin West, c. 1770
    Elizabeth Shewell West and Her Son, RaphaelBenjamin West, c. 1770Courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art
  2. Dance in a Subterranean Roundhouse at Clear Lake, California, by Jules Tavernier, 1878
    Dance in a Subterranean Roundhouse at Clear Lake, CaliforniaJules Tavernier, 1878Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Bay 3

  1. Two girls in acrobatic uniforms stand in an arena, one holds oranges.
    Acrobats at the Cirque Fernando (Francisca and Angelina Wartenberg)Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1879Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago
  2. A work made of oil on canvas.
    Saint Romanus of Antioch and Saint BarulasFrancisco de Zurbarán, 1638Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago

Bay 4

  1. Dragon and Tiger, by Sesson Shūkei, c. 1546–56
    Dragon and TigerSesson Shūkei, c. 1546–56Courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art
  2. Bright light from the upper left illuminates two muscular men and a winged angel against a dim landscape in this square painting. They all have pale skin, and the two men have dark brown hair and beards. One man, Jesus, stands ankle-deep in a rippling dark blue stream in the center of the composition facing us with downcast eyes. He is nude except for a white cloth that drapes over one shoulder and is tied around his hips. The other end of the cloth drops into the water. Jesus’s hands are pressed together in prayer at chest-height closer to his right shoulder, to our left. He leans his torso in the other direction and looks down at the water. The second man stands on the riverbank to our right. His body faces our left but his left shoulder, closer to us, dips down so his broad back is angled toward us. His lower body is wrapped in a cobalt-blue garment bordered with what looks like sheepskin. His near hand swings back to clutch the trunk of a tree growing immediately behind him. In his other hand, he holds up a pewter-grey dish that dribbles water onto Jesus’s head. On the left riverbank, the copper-haired angel looks on, facing our right in profile but the body faces us. The angel wears a sleeveless, pumpkin-orange robe with a shimmering salmon-pink mantle draped over the right shoulder, to our left. Petal-pink and dark grey wings extend from the shoulders, and the lower legs and feet are bare. The shadowy landscape has a dark green field stretching back to jagged, sapphire-blue mountains along the horizon, which comes four-fifths of the way up this composition. Pale blue clouds skim across the vivid blue sky, where three chubby, winged babies float. One holds a triangle and a rod with which to strike it, and another might hold a rectangular musical instrument. Blue clouds split nearby to show a sliver of golden yellow light, and possibly more angels.
    The Baptism of ChristParis Bordone, c. 1535/1540Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington