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| Enrico Meneghelli The Picture Gallery in the Old Museum 1879 oil on board Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
The walls of nineteenth-century museum galleries were thick with paintings, jigsawed together, a style of hang that had prevailed in Europe for several centuries, but was shortly to disappear. The paintings pictured above – mainly donated by wealthy citizens – had been brought together for public viewing in nineteenth-century Boston. Most of them remain to this day at the Museum of Fine Arts, though not necessarily on view, and certainly no longer massed in this outmoded style. The largest and most prominent of this represented group is the dark Courbet hunting scene (reproduced in isolation directly below). It will be noticed that Enrico Meneghelli in his "Picture Gallery" painting chose to distort the Courbet's proportions, compressing it more toward a square shape. The perceived requirements of his own composition (no doubt enforced by traditional academic training) evidently took priority over any newfangled standards of photographic accuracy.
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| Gustave Courbet The Quarry 1856 oil on canvas Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| Enrico Meneghelli View of a Gallery in the Museum of Fine Arts, Copley Square 1877 oil on board Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| Louis-Léopold Boilly Young Woman Ironing ca. 1800 oil on canvas Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| William Morris Hunt Portrait of a Lady 1870 oil on canvas Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| John Constable Weymouth Bay from the Downs above Osmington Mills ca. 1816 oil on canvas Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| John La Farge Rocks at Newport ca. 1859 watercolor Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| William Merritt Chase A Modern Magdalen ca. 1888 oil on canvas Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| Jean-François Millet Harvesters Resting (Ruth and Boaz) 1850-53 oil on canvas Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| James McNeill Whistler The Long Gallery at the Louvre 1894 lithograph Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| James McNeill Whistler The Sister 1894-95 lithograph Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| James McNeill Whistler The Lime Burner 1859 etching Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| Giovanni Paolo Lasinio Angel freeing St Peter from Prison before 1855 drawing Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| Edgar Degas Three Dancers ca. 1889 drawing Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |