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A woman with smooth, pale skin and wearing a hat, long dress, and gloves, stands holding a bunch of pumpkin-orange leaves against a background of trees painted with touches of rust orange and pine green in this vertical painting. The woman tips her head back slightly to look at us with dark eyes under arched eyebrows. Her cheeks are flushed and her coral-pink lips closed. Her round black hat perches on the back of her head and she has an inky black, long-sleeved, hip-length jacket with bronze trim at the shoulders, cuffs, and down the front. A gauzy bow is tied at her neck. Her left elbow, on our right, is bent and she holds up her tan-colored, ruffled skirt with a white-gloved hand. The raised skirt exposes sky-blue lining and white, ruffled flounces at her feet. Her right arm, on our left, hangs at her side and holds the handle of a basket. Deep marigold-orange leaves cascade out of the basket. One black shoe peeks out from under her long skirt. She stands on a hill carpeted with crimson-red, tawny-brown, golden yellow, and forest-green leaves. The space behind her is filled with touches and dabs of red, orange, brown, black, and tan.
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A woman with smooth, pale skin and wearing a hat, long dress, and gloves, stands holding a bunch of pumpkin-orange leaves against a background of trees painted with touches of rust orange and pine green in this vertical painting. The woman tips her head back slightly to look at us with dark eyes under arched eyebrows. Her cheeks are flushed and her coral-pink lips closed. Her round black hat perches on the back of her head and she has an inky black, long-sleeved, hip-length jacket with bronze trim at the shoulders, cuffs, and down the front. A gauzy bow is tied at her neck. Her left elbow, on our right, is bent and she holds up her tan-colored, ruffled skirt with a white-gloved hand. The raised skirt exposes sky-blue lining and white, ruffled flounces at her feet. Her right arm, on our left, hangs at her side and holds the handle of a basket. Deep marigold-orange leaves cascade out of the basket. One black shoe peeks out from under her long skirt. She stands on a hill carpeted with crimson-red, tawny-brown, golden yellow, and forest-green leaves. The space behind her is filled with touches and dabs of red, orange, brown, black, and tan.

National Gallery of Art · Painting

Autumn

Winslow Homer

Date
1877
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
overall: 97.1 x 58.9 cm (38 1/4 x 23 3/16 in.) framed: 126.4 x 91.1 x 7.9 cm (49 3/4 x 35 7/8 x 3 1/8 in.)
Classification
Painting
Accession number
1985.64.22
Credit line
Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon
Time span
1876 to 1900
Department
CAB
Original NGA record Wikidata Print information

Subjects and terms

  • painted surface
  • American
  • female
  • figure
  • Standing
  • Realist
  • American Paintings of the Nineteenth Century, Part I [A-L]
Provenance

(Sale, Leavitt Art Rooms, New York, 29-30 January 1878, 2nd day, no. 95). (Doll & Richards, Boston, June 1878); sold 1 July 1878 to Stephen Westcott Nickerson, Narraganset Hotel, Providence, Rhode Island.[1] Charles T. Barney [1851-1907], New York.[2] Edward C.J. Runge [1847-1916], New York; (his sale, American Art Association, New York, 9 January 1902, no. 71); purchased by E.A. Rorke. M.J. Hegarty, White Plains, New York, c. 1911; consigned 30 July 1936 to (M. Knoedler & Co., New York);[3] sold 10 May 1943 to Dr. Philip G. Stevens, New Haven, Connecticut,[4] until at least 1944.[5] H. B. Yotnakparian. Polly M. Leavitt, Bangor, Maine. Theodore Leavitt, New York, until at least 1950.[6] (Robert Carlen Galleries, Philadelphia); probably sold 1951 to Irving H. Vogel, Philadelphia.[7] (Wildenstein & Co., New York), by 1954 until 1957.[8] Mr. and Mrs. Nathan Shaye, Detroit, 1958 until at least May 1962.[9] (Marlborough-Gerson Gallery, New York); sold December 1964 to Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, Upperville, Virginia;[10] gift 1985 to NGA. [1] Doll & Richards records, box 53, Archives of American Art, Washington, D.C. [2] J. Eastman Chase, "Some Recollections of Winslow Homer," _Harper's Weekly_ 54 (22 October 1910): 13. [3] Per 1 November 1995 letter from Melissa De Medeiros, Librarian at M. Knoedler (in NGA curatorial files). [4] See note 3. [5] Identified in _Winslow Homer_ (Exh. cat. Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts, 1944, no. 13); the exhibition ran from 16 November to 17 December 1944. [6] Identified in _Dramatic Choices: The Theater Collects_ (Exh. cat. Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo, 1950: no. 31); the exhibition ran from 4 November to 1 December 1950. [7] This provenance was "unconfirmed, but probable" according to a letter of 16 September 1991 from Abigail Booth Gerdts (in NGA curatorial files). No record of this sale can be found in the Robert Carlen Galleries Papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. [8] "Wildenstein & Co. advertisement," _Arts Magazine_ 31 (September 1957): 4. [9] "American Paintings and Drawings from Michigan Collections," Detroit Institute of Arts, 10 April-6 May 1962. [10] Invoice dated 29 December 1964 from Marlborough-Gerson to Paul Mellon (in NGA curatorial files).

Inscription

lower right: HOMER '77

NGA object ID 66420. 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.