National Gallery of Art Acquires Hundreds of Works

The National Gallery owns only two paintings by Giorgio de Chirico, Conservation among the Ruins (1927) and Via Appia Antica (ca. 1945/1950), both of which show the artist’s lifelong fascination with antiquity. Elettra Consolatrice, the first drawing by the artist to enter the museum’s collection, seems to meld the artist’s earlier Metaphysical Painting style, with his signature mannequin heads, with Classicism, as seen by the figures’ Greco-Roman robes. This work was likely a study for a painting owned by de Chirico’s foundation that is currently on view in “Giorgio de Chirico. L’ultima metafisica” at Italy’s Palazzo dei Musei di Modena.

On the contemporary side of things, the NGA has acquired Chorus, a mixed-media installation featuring dozens of conch shells that Teresita Fernández has coated in graphite. The work combines the artist’s interest in drawing and sculpture with a sound element, coming from the shells. Chorus is the first work by Fernández to enter the museum’s collection and its acquisition creates “new opportunities to draw connections between landscape drawing, abstraction, minimalism, and land art,” according to a release.

One of the few contemporary paintings to enter the NGA’s collection during this round of acquisitions, Salman Toor’s Wandering Beggars references both the work of Vincent van Gogh and the centuries-old format of the tondo painting. In a release the NGA also connected Wandering Beggars to Picasso’s Family of Saltimbanques (1905), an iconic work of the museum’s permanent collection. The first work by Toor to enter the National Gallery’s holdings, this painting exemplifies “Toor’s approach to reinterpreting narrative painting traditions through the lens of contemporary culture,” per a release.

After emigrating from Scotland, Alexander Gardner settled in Washington, D.C., where he managed the gallery for American photographer Matthew Brady. Having taken up photography at some point in the 1850s, Gardner would become best-known for his images of the US Civil War, capturing a range of images from daily life both of civilians and soldiers to felled soldiers on the battlefield and the ruins of war. Seen, here is Gardner’s image of the crowd gathered in D.C. to witness Abraham’s second presidential inauguration, a month before Robert E. Lee’s surrender and Lincoln’s assassination. Gardner would later be given special access by the Secret Service to photograph the conspirators of the assassination and their execution that July.

Measuring around 6 by 4 inches, this pen and ink drawing by Anna Waser, an 18th-century Swiss artist and court painter, is one of around only 25 drawings by that artist that survive today. Originally from Zurich, Waser first received painting lessons when she was 12 and ultimately moved to Bern to study in Joseph Werner’s drawing school, where she was the only woman enrolled. In 1700, she would work as a court painter to Count Wilhelm Moritz of Solms-Braunfels, being the only Swiss woman to achieve that status in the Baroque era. Despite these achievements, she was never granted admission to any painter’s guild or academy during her lifetime, according to art historian Michèle Seehafer. This drawing, likely showing an enslaved man, was made in 1704, a decade before her death at 35 in 1714.

Born in Rome in 1649, Teresa del Pò trained under her father, Italian Baroque painter Pietro del Pò. She was one of the few women who was admitted to the Academy of Saint Luke in Rome, doing so in 1657. Del Pò would dedicate herself to printmaking and miniatures, very few of which survive today. The NGA acquired two works by del Pò, both titled Penitent Magdalene and dating to 1675. The above work, which measure around 7.5 by 6.3 inches, is the “earliest documented example of a parchment miniature,” according to a release. The other work is a slightly larger etching that is similar to del Pò’s gouache drawing, though the orientation of Mary Magdalene is flipped.

This oil on copper painting measures about 7 by 5 inches and depicts Ary de Vois, a painter associated with the 17th-century Leiden school. Scholars believe that this work would have likely accompanied a similarly seized one depicting the artist’s wife. The National Gallery is well known for its collection of 17th-century Dutch paintings, many of which were donated by Andrew Mellon in 1937. The collection comprises more than 150 paintings, though only a few are self-portraits, like Rembrandt’s 1659 one and a Judith Leyster canvas made around 1630. In a release, the National Gallery noted that “Vois’s elegant works are marked by practically invisible brushwork, sharp attention to detail, and enamel-like finishes.”