Northern paintings at the Ashmolean Museum, 17th century

Jan Cornelisz Verspronck
Portrait of a Woman
1640
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

The 17th-century Italian pictures at the Ashmolean Museum Oxford still can cause sharp regret because I did not see them in the 1990s when I had the opportunity. Today, however, we look at the museum's non-Italian paintings from the 17th century, which I neglected equally but regret slightly less.

David Teniers
The Mocking of Christ
1640s
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

J. van Slechtenhorst
Vase of Flowers
1670
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Pieter John Nason
Maurice, Count of Nassau-Siegen
1660s
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Nicholas Maes
Allegory of the Sense of Smell, with Carnations
ca. 1650
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Cornelis Kick
Still life with Lemon & Pink Roses
17th century
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Flemish painter
Landscape with Road through a Wood
17th century
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Dutch painter
Head of a Girl 
(cut down long ago from a larger canvas)
17th century
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Karel du Jardin
Framyard with Animals
1650s
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Adriaen Coorte
Oriental Birds
1683
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Johannes Colaert
Stag Hunt in a Wood
17th century
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Elias van den Broeck
Vase of Flowers
1690s
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

French paintings at the Ashmolean Museum, 19th century

Eugène Boudin
Berck : Cloudy Landscape
1882
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

One dozen French paintings of the 19th century. These have by various twisting paths made their way to one unlikely location and they all can now be seen together at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. Among them are a fine wide sky by Boudin (above) and a poignant military portrait made during the Siege of Paris in 1870 (below). Carolus-Duran – the painter of the soulful soldier – is better remembered today as the teacher of John Singer Sargent than for any paintings of his own. This is unfair to Carolus-Duran, but reputations are unforgiving.

Charles Émile Auguste Carolus-Duran
Portrait of E. Berthon
1870
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot
Le Petit Chaville near Ville d'Avray
1823
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot
Montfermeuil : the Brook in the Wood
1867
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Honoré Daumier
Landscape with Figure
ca. 1860
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

French painter
Still Life
ca. 1800
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

François Marius Granet
View of a Garden through a Roman Vault
ca. 1820
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Édouard Manet
Garden Urn
19th century
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Édouard Manet
Portrait of Mademoiselle Claus
19th century
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Camille Pissarro
Bouquet of Pink Peonies
1873
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Pierre Auguste Renoir
Garden in Montmartre
1890s
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
La Toilette
1891
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

The two French drawings below entered the Ashmolean Museum only recently. Both were acquired in honor of art historian Francis Haskell (1928-2000). The Delacroix was a gift in his honor by the American Friends of the British Museum. The wash drawing by Fontaine was sponsored by Professor Haskell himself. Both sheets reflect his scholarly preoccupation – to examine how the art of past historical periods was received and interpreted by people of taste in later historical periods.

Eugène Delacroix
Sheet of studies, including two heads after Greek coins
19th century
drawing
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
Presented by the American Friends of the British Museum in honor of Professor Francis Haskell, 2001

Pierre-François Leonard Fontain
Roman ossuary
19th century
wash drawing
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
Purchased with funds donated by Professor Francis Haskell, 1996

English paintings at the Ashmolean Museum, 20th century

Philip Connard
Still Life with Crockery
1920s
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

English paintings of the 20th century appear to have drifted little by little into the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford as individual gifts or bequests. The maker's names are little known now, memorable mainly from the writings of the various English literary moderns in whose circles they moved. Their place in European art history appears to be fairly tenuous, but these cosmopolitan Londoners were in most cases better known even in their lifetimes as art teachers than art makers.

John Downton
Frances Witts in Profile
ca. 1935
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Tristram Paul Hillier
A Rose
ca. 1944
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Thomas Esmond Lowinsky
Miss Avril Turner
1937
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Paul Fordyce Maitland
Beech Trees at Sunsset : Kensignton Gardens
1905
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

James Bolivar Manson
Mrs. Crump's Garden
ca. 1925
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

William Orpen
Chess Players
1902
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Frederick James Porter
Peonies in a Yellow Vase
1921
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Matthew Smith
Vase of Flowers
1920s
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Philip Wilson Steer
Stroud : View over the Plain
1902
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

William Strang
The Fisherman's Home
1905
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Henry Tonks
The Birdcage
1907
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

English paintings at the Ashmolean Museum, 19th century

Lawrence Alma-Tadema
A corner of the garden at the Villa Borghese, Rome
1876
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Lawrence Alma-Tadema painted his chosen corner of the Borghese Gardens in the middle 1870s. But the majority of the other 19th-century English paintings in the Ashmolean Museum were set in England and painted in England. The exceptions – like the Alma-Tadema above and the Calvert below – are expressions of romantic commitment to a Mediterranean fantasy-world.

Edward Calvert
In the Aegean Sea
1844
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

George Clausen
Farmer's Boy
1884
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

The portrait above by George Clausen accomplished everything and more that Andrew Wyeth in America was to attempt a few generations later during the most over-praised and over-promoted career of the 20th century. Even decades after his death the well-marketed Wyeth remains a familiar name, while the shade of George Clausen endures near-complete oblivion.

John Constable
Vale of Dedham seen from Langham 
1812
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Lionel Constable
View of Hampstead looking towards Harrow
19th century
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

David Cox
Garden Terrace at Haddon Hall
1849
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

William Daniels
The Goldfish Bowl
19th century
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

George Jones
Turner's Body Lying in State in the Gallery at Queen Anne Street
1851
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Samuel Palmer
The White Cloud
1830s
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

John Pettie
Portrait of the Artist's Wife
1865
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Thomas Sully
The Love Letter
1834
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

European paintings at the Ashmolean Museum, 18th century

Johann Zoffany
Portrait of David Garrick
early 1760s
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

From the curator's notes provided by the Ashmolean Museum for the portrait above – "The celebrated actor David Garrick (1717-1779) bought out the young German artist Zoffany from his apprenticeship with Benjamin Wilson in 1762 and became one of his most consistent patrons. Most of Zoffany's portraits of Garrick show him either in character on the stage or in conversation pieces. Here he is seen in an informal pose without his wig, but with the traditional device of masks of Comedy and Tragedy."   

Like the other Ashmolean grab-bags we have been looking into, the paintings from the 18th century seem like miscellaneous curiosities, brought together by chance. Studied one by one, nevertheless, each begins to yield its own surprises kept concealed from hasty viewers.

Claude-Joseph Vernet
Coastal Scene
1750s
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Giambattista Tiepolo
Woman with Macaw 
1760s
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

George Romney
Mrs. Siddons
1784
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Joshua Reynolds
James Paine, Architect, and his son, James
1764
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Allan Ramsay
Flora Macdonald
1749
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Jan van Os
Still Life with Flowers & Fruit
18th century
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Anton Raphael Mengs
William Fermor on the Grand Tour
1757
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Thomas Lawrence
Francis Osborne, 5th Duke of Leeds
1796
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

William Hoare
Portrait Study of the Countess of Ashburnham 
ca. 1775
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Thomas Jones
Rooftops in Naples
1782
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

circle of Francesco Guardi
Capriccio with Ruins & Bridge
18th century
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford