 |
| Théodore Géricault Two Horses 1808-1809 oil on canvas Phillips Collection, Washington DC |
 |
| Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres Small Bather 1826 oil on canvas Phillips Collection, Washington DC |
"Ingres was clearly fascinated by the bather's physical type, and he used the central figure in two other works painted after the one in the Phillips Collection. Carefully lit to show off her smooth and perfect skin and the sinuously rounded, supple curves of her neck and shoulder, the curiously boneless bather suggests the icily erotic marbles by Antonio Canova, Ingres's great Italian contemporary. Ingres studied in Paris under Jacques-Louis David and was a prodigious draftsman. A great admirer of High Renaissance Italian painting, especially the works of Raphael, Ingres spent many years in Rome. Duncan Phillips, a collector for whom color and painterly handling represented the highest values in painting, had no natural affinity for Ingres. He included him in his collection as a foil to Delacroix, considering him representative of what more painterly romantics were struggling against."
– curator's notes from the Phillips Collection
The quality or characteristic that stands out most starkly in this group of paintings from the Phillips Collection is how well they match (with the one deliberate exception of the tiny Ingres). The original plutocratic couple who made these art-choices were consciously assembling a monument to their own deliberately-focused taste. Many small museums have been and are being born from this aspiration, but few achieve this level of almost-weird family resemblance among the objects – in hue, in scale, in content, technique and even form.
 |
| Honoré Daumier The Uprising (L'Emeute) ca. 1848 oil on canvas Phillips Collection, Washington DC |
 |
| Eugène Delacroix Horses emerging from the sea 1860 oil on canvas Phillips Collection, Washington DC |
 |
| Eugène Boudin Beach at Trouville 1863 oil on panel Phillips Collection, Washington DC |
 |
| Edgar Degas La Répétition au foyer de la danse ca. 1870-72 oil on canvas Phillips Collection, Washington DC |
 |
| Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux Street Scene before 1875 oil on canvas Phillips Collection, Washington DC |
 |
| Edgar Degas Women combing their hair ca. 1875-76 oil on paper mounted on canvas Phillips Collection, Washington DC |
 |
| Honoré Daumier The Strong Man 1885 oil on panel Phillips Collection, Washington DC |
 |
| Paul Gauguin The Ham 1889 oil on canvas Phillips Collection, Washington DC |
 |
| Constantin Guys A Fashionable Woman before 1892 watercolor Phillips Collection, Washington DC |
 |
| Paul Cézanne Ginger pot with pomegranate and pears 1893 oil on canvas Phillips Collection, Washington DC |
 |
| Berthe Morisot Two Girls ca. 1894 oil on canvas Phillips Collection, Washington DC |
 |
| Edgar Degas After the Bath ca. 1895 pastel Phillips Collection, Washington DC |