We look beyond a cluster of flags hanging from the side of one tall building onto a wide street at a row of buildings across from us in this vertical painting. The scene is loosely painted with visible brushstrokes, so some details are difficult to make out. We seem to lean out a window to look along the street, so the building to our right only skims the edge of the composition and continues off the top. The three flags closest to us fly from nearly horizontal flagstaffs along the bottom edge of the painting. All the flags are in shades of scarlet red, white, and royal blue. The flag closest to us is red with the red, white, and blue Union Jack in the upper corner. Beyond it is an American flag with 49 stars, and then the French flag with the vertical bands of blue, white, and red. Those three flags are repeated about a dozen times along the building that stretches away from us, along the right edge of the painting. More of those flags are hung from the cream-white and tan buildings across the street, to our left. Some of those buildings reach off the top edge of the canvas and others come close. The shadows along moldings and the windows are painted with pale and lapis blue. Through narrow gaps left between the fluttering flags, vertical strokes of navy blue and violet purple suggest crowds of people in the street below. The sky between the buildings is ice blue. The artist signed and dated the painting in the center left, “Childe Hassam May 17 1917.”
Read the visual description

We look beyond a cluster of flags hanging from the side of one tall building onto a wide street at a row of buildings across from us in this vertical painting. The scene is loosely painted with visible brushstrokes, so some details are difficult to make out. We seem to lean out a window to look along the street, so the building to our right only skims the edge of the composition and continues off the top. The three flags closest to us fly from nearly horizontal flagstaffs along the bottom edge of the painting. All the flags are in shades of scarlet red, white, and royal blue. The flag closest to us is red with the red, white, and blue Union Jack in the upper corner. Beyond it is an American flag with 49 stars, and then the French flag with the vertical bands of blue, white, and red. Those three flags are repeated about a dozen times along the building that stretches away from us, along the right edge of the painting. More of those flags are hung from the cream-white and tan buildings across the street, to our left. Some of those buildings reach off the top edge of the canvas and others come close. The shadows along moldings and the windows are painted with pale and lapis blue. Through narrow gaps left between the fluttering flags, vertical strokes of navy blue and violet purple suggest crowds of people in the street below. The sky between the buildings is ice blue. The artist signed and dated the painting in the center left, “Childe Hassam May 17 1917.”

National Gallery of Art · Painting

Allies Day, May 1917

Childe Hassam

Date
1917
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
overall: 92.7 x 76.8 cm (36 1/2 x 30 1/4 in.) framed: 110.8 x 94.3 x 6.4 cm (43 5/8 x 37 1/8 x 2 1/2 in.)
Classification
Painting
Accession number
1943.9.1
Credit line
Gift of Ethelyn McKinney in memory of her brother, Glenn Ford McKinney
Time span
1901 to 1925
Department
CAB

Subjects and terms

  • painted surface
  • American
  • Impressionist
  • holidays/festivals/parties
  • genre
  • American Paintings of the Nineteenth Century, Part I [A-L]
  • Allies Day
Provenance

Sold 1919 through (E. & A. Milch, Inc., New York) to Gilbert E. Rubens [1884-1960], New York, until 1930; (William Macbeth, New York); sold December 1930 to Glenn Ford McKinney [d. 1934], New York; acquired 1934 by his sister, Ethelyn McKinney, Greenwich, Connecticut; gift 1943 to NGA.

Inscription

center left: Childe Hassam / May 17 1917; upper left reverse, in monogram: C.H.; upper right reverse: May 1917

NGA object ID 30115. Collection metadata is reproduced under CC0. This work is included because its NGA published-image record is marked open access; visitors should recheck the source record before substantial reuse.