PAINTINGS & SCULPTURES
Highlights

Looking at the artwork chronologically, the masterpieces by Rembrandt, François Boucher and Tiepolo are among the highlights of the collection.

You could almost walk past Rembrandt’s ‘Self-portrait in Oriental Attire’ hanging among other works from the same period down in the basement. But this unassuming painting shows Rembrandt off as a prince in his finery. A turban with a feather, a satin tunic, a shawl embroidered with gold and precious stones, and a heavy velvet coat.

‘The Happy Mother’ by my favourite rococo painter François Boucher hangs on wooden panels in what could well be the most striking space in the whole place. The painting reflects a unique combination of naturalism, imagination and everyday observation, portraying innocence and that sense of ambiguity always lying just beneath the surface.

And that brings us to ‘Alexander and Bucephalus’ by Tiepolo. This rather small work of art is one of the very few by an Italian artist in the collection. There’s a chance it was actually intended as a practice run for a bigger painting. Or it could have been a piece in its own right that Tiepolo painted for a bit of fun at the height of his career.

There are several impressive works by Gustave Courbet here. It’s just a shame that the main one was missing when we visited. ‘Les Demoiselles des bords de la Seine (été)’ was on loan at the time.

In its place was ‘Le Sommeil’. Courbet was central to the emergence of realism. He may not get quite as much attention as some of the other artists, but he is a one-of-a-kind nonetheless. His female nudes were considered shocking at the time. But we probably don’t even bat an eyelid these days. 😉 He had a skill for painting living flesh in a style completely different to the usual smooth, white, idealised bodies depicted by his contemporaries. ‘Le Sommeil’ is one of his best nude paintings, capturing the reverie and lust of the artist behind it.

One of those contemporaries we mentioned was Rodin. This sculpture of his features two bodies entwined too. But the mythical figures ‘Amour et Psyché’ are far from real-life people. And yet Rodin somehow managed to cause a scandal as usual. 😉

How about some impressionism?

We’d better start with a bit of Monet, hadn’t we? His ‘Sun Setting over the Seine at Lavacourt, Winter Effect’ is a pretty pastel picture. The artist recreated the cold mist in the top third with small, flowing brush strokes. Meanwhile, the water and banks are expressed with big, thick strokes and the orange of the setting sun takes centre stage for a stunning effect.

From Renoir, we have ‘Berthe Morisot and her Daughter’. The artist and subject were close friends. Well, somehow everyone seemed to know each other in this scene. Berthe was actually married to Eugène Manet, the brother of Edouard Manet, and Monet was a close friend too…

Berthe Morisot was one of the few female artists in the group and the most successful female impressionist by far. The 1893 painting ‘Girl with Decollete, the Flower in Hair’ is all the proof you need of her skill and talent. We can see her free and vibrant style plus the signature fresh feel of her work.

Charles-Alexandre Giron may be less famous but that doesn’t make him any less fascinating. As a Swiss painter who moved to Paris, he was part of the scene too. His painting ‘Woman Wearing Gloves (La Parisienne)’ is nothing short of exquisite. But his most well-known piece is a giant landscape painting that hangs in the Swiss National Council in Bern: ‘The Cradle of the Confederation’.

Moving onto the post-impressionists, we have Paul Cézanne’s ‘Three Bathers’ and Paul Gauguin’s ‘Old Man with a Stick’. Post-impressionism is an umbrella term used to describe all the different artistic styles that came about between 1880 and 1905. Van Gogh, Seurat and Toulouse-Lautrec also fall into this group, having paved the way for modern painting.