Delaware Art Museum

Highlights from the Permanent Collection

Early Autumn, Montclair (1891/1891) by George InnessDelaware Art Museum

Early American

Works from the Early American Collection

Inness painted this autumn scene of an old, gnarled tree in the flat New Jersey meadows near his home in Montclair. He was a close observer of atmospheric effects. In this late-afternoon scene the dark clouds and swirling leaves suggest an approaching storm.

South American Landscape (1873/1873) by Frederic Edwin ChurchDelaware Art Museum

While in South America, Church made sketches that served as inspiration for major paintings that he produced in his New York studio. This panoramic landscape represents a combination of sites seen and sketched in South America, not a single location.

Tobias Curing His Father's Blindness (1803/1803) by Benjamin WestDelaware Art Museum

Inspired by the Apocryphal book of Tobit, this painting depicts the return of Tobias to his blind father’s home with a fish whose gall is supposed to cure blindness. The figure at the far right is the angel Raphael who accompanied Tobias on his journey.

Cupid's Hunting Fields (1880/1880) by Edward Burne-JonesDelaware Art Museum

Pre-Raphaelite

Highlights from the Pre-Raphaelite Collection

Found, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1853/1869, From the collection of: Delaware Art Museum
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'Found' depicts the poignant moment when a young farmer, arriving in London to sell his calf at market, discovers his sweetheart, now a prostitute left destitute on the streets of the metropolis.

Toilet of a Roman Lady, Simeon Solomon, 1869/1869, From the collection of: Delaware Art Museum
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In this painting, a beautiful, if somewhat Amazonian, woman is attended by three equally attractive servants. The setting is clearly classical in inspiration. Solomon visited Italy and Pompeii in 1867, and much of the interior may be based on an actual Pompeian fresco.

La Bella Mano, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1875/1875, From the collection of: Delaware Art Museum
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Rossetti completed the sonnet entitled La Bella Mano a year after the painting, suggesting the visual representation may have been the inspiration for the poem. The two stanzas which appear on the frame are in Italian, a language in which Rossetti was fluent from an early age.

Romeo and Juliet, Ford Madox Brown, 1869/1870, From the collection of: Delaware Art Museum
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The work of Shakespeare was particularly revered by the Pre-Raphaelites. In this painting, Brown captures the romantic and poignant moment in the early dawn on Juliet’s balcony, when Romeo parts from his love for what will be the final time.

The Mother of Moses, Simeon Solomon, not dated, From the collection of: Delaware Art Museum
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Solomon was an important if unusual figure in the Victorian period. Jewish by descent, he was born into a family of painters. He often painted Old Testament subjects such as this one, taken from the life of Moses. Unlike earlier depictions in which the heroic aspects of Moses’ life are depicted, Solomon has chosen a more intimate moment.

Mary Magdalene, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1877/1877, From the collection of: Delaware Art Museum
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Although the model for this painting has not been identified, it may have been Rossetti’s housemaid, whose name has come down to us in the present day only as “Mary.” She personifies the archetypical Pre-Raphaelite notion of beauty with her red hair, large lips, and enticing brown eyes.

Mnemosyne, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1881/1881, From the collection of: Delaware Art Museum
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The Buccaneer Was a Picturesque Fellow (1905/1905) by Howard PyleDelaware Art Museum

Howard Pyle 

Highlights of American Illustration

Extorting Tribute from the Citizens, Howard Pyle, 1905/1905, From the collection of: Delaware Art Museum
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When Pyle's illustrations for “The Fate of a Treasure Town” appeared in 1905, they were - according to one early Pyle biographer - "the sensation of the magazine world... marvelously rich in color...dramatically stirring, and vividly romantic."

Thomas Jefferson Writing the Declaration of Independence, Howard Pyle, 1898/1898, From the collection of: Delaware Art Museum
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In 1897 Scribner’s Magazine commissioned Pyle to create twelve illustrations to accompany a year-long serialization of Henry Cabot Lodge’s “Story of the Revolution.” Here Pyle shows Thomas Jefferson as the primary author of the Declaration of Independence.

The Brooks Forces Evacuating the State House at Little Rock, Howard Pyle, 1895/1895, From the collection of: Delaware Art Museum
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Pyle depicts a scene of a 1874 civil disturbance during armed conflict over the disputed Arkansas gubernatorial election of 1872. One faction, led by James Brooks, forcibly took over the state capitol building.

The Attack upon the Chew House, Howard Pyle, 1898/1898, From the collection of: Delaware Art Museum
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In 1897 Scribner’s Magazine commissioned Pyle to create twelve illustrations to accompany a year-long serialization of Henry Cabot Lodge’s “Story of the Revolution.” The Attack upon the Chew House depicts Washington’s troops attacking on the British General Howe’s encampment at Germantown, PA, headquartered at the Chew House, in October of 1777.

Quick as a Flash, David Leaped out and upon It, Howard Pyle, 1895/1895, From the collection of: Delaware Art Museum
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The Enchanter Merlin and Illustrated Initial T with Heading, Howard Pyle, 1902/1902, From the collection of: Delaware Art Museum
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Pyle's retelling of the British medieval adventures of King Arthur and his knights invited middle-class American boys to aspire to manly virtues.

Two knights do battle before Cameliard and Illustrated Initial T with Heading, Howard Pyle, 1903/1903, From the collection of: Delaware Art Museum
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Pyle's retelling of the British medieval adventures of King Arthur and his knights invited middle-class American boys to aspire to manly virtues.

The Coming of Lancaster, Howard Pyle, 1908/1908, From the collection of: Delaware Art Museum
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The Fight on Lexington Common, April 19, 1775 (1898/1898) by Howard PyleDelaware Art Museum

An Attack on a Galleon, Howard Pyle, 1905/1905, From the collection of: Delaware Art Museum
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Pyle's story captures the dangers of piracy in waters around the Spanish colonial ports of Central and South America in the seventeenth century, when ships carrying the wealth of Central and South America to the Spanish crown were often attacked by pirates who later divided the riches among themselves.

Two knights do battle before Cameliard and Illustrated Initial T with Heading, Howard Pyle, 1903/1903, From the collection of: Delaware Art Museum
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Summertime (1943/1943) by Edward HopperDelaware Art Museum

Modern & Contemporary

Highlights from the 20th and 21st Century

Trout Fishing, "The Screecher," Lake Rossignol, Nova Scotia, George Luks, 1919/1919, From the collection of: Delaware Art Museum
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Although best known for his depictions of New York street life, George Luks also had a great passion for landscape painting which he developed on summer trips to Nova Scotia, Maine, the Berkshires, and the Adirondacks. This dramatic painting was executed in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, near Lake Rossignol.

Washington Bridge, New York City, Ernest Lawson, 1915/1925, From the collection of: Delaware Art Museum
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Ernest Lawson, a native of Canada, studied with American Impressionists John Twachtman and J. Alden Weir and traveled to France, where his acquaintance with the painter Alfred Sisley reinforced a direction toward a personal style derived from impressionism. In 1898 Lawson moved to Washington Heights, New York, near the sparsely populated farmlands along the Harlem River.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, John Sloan, 1911/1911, From the collection of: Delaware Art Museum
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roduced for the Socialist newspaper the New York Call, Sloan's drawing comments on the hazardous conditions that led to the deaths of 146 garment workers, mostly young immigrant women, in a fire at the Triangle Waist Company in Lower Manhattan.

The Show Case (1905/1905) by John SloanDelaware Art Museum

The Women's Page (1905/1905) by John SloanDelaware Art Museum

Spring Trellis, Lucio Pozzi, 1998/1998, From the collection of: Delaware Art Museum
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Four Gates for the Good Sea, Lucio Pozzi, 1998/1998, From the collection of: Delaware Art Museum
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Crying Giant, Tom Otterness, 2002/2002, From the collection of: Delaware Art Museum
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