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Bellows, George,
Portrait female -- Cavell, Edith
Ethnic -- British
State of Being -- Other
History -- United States
Architecture interior -- Civic
Figure group -- Male
Occupation -- Military
Ethnic -- German
Painting
Edith Cavell, (painting).
Artist:
Bellows, George, 1882-1925, painter.
Title:
Edith Cavell, (painting).
Dates:
1918.
Digital Reference:
Medium:
Oil on canvas.
Dimensions:
45 x 63 in. (114.3 x 160 cm).
Inscription:
(Lower left, signature by Emma Story (Mrs. George) Bellows:) Geo. Bellows/ESB
Description:
Edith Cavell is depicted just before her execution, after she has been taken from her cell in the Prison of St. Gilles in the middle of the night, having had no time to change from her dressing gown. She stands on the stairs of the Tir National, dressed in her white gown and bathed in bright light, as German soldiers climb up the stairs toward her. Below the stairs, the prison scene is dark with lanterns highlighting German soldiers asleep on the ground and others conversing as they prepare for the firing squad.
Subject:
Portrait female
--
Cavell, Edith
--
Full length
Ethnic
--
British
State of Being
--
Other
--
Imprisonment
History
--
United States
--
World War I
Architecture interior
--
Civic
--
Prison
Figure group
--
Male
Occupation
--
Military
--
Soldier
Ethnic
--
German
Object Type:
Painting
Owner:
Museum of Fine Arts, 220 State Street, Springfield, Massachusetts 01103 Accession Number: 49.02
Provenance:
Formerly in the collection of Bellows, George, estate of, until 1949.
Purchased from H. V. Allison & Company, New York, New York 1949.
Remarks:
The painting tells the story of Briton Edith Cavell (1865-1915), who was the head nurse of the Berkendael Institute in Brussels, which became a hospital for the Red Cross during World War I. In August 1915 she was arrested by German soldiers on charges that she was harboring Allied soldiers from Britain, Belgium, and France, and helping them escape to Holland. Cavell, who was sentenced to death and executed on October 12, 1915, became a martyr for the Allied cause, and was dramatized in numerous publications.
References:
New York, Gallery of Modern Art Including the Huntington Hartford Collection, "George Bellows: Paintings, Drawings, Lithographs," New York, 1966.
"Selections from the American Collections of the Museum of Fine Arts and the George Walter Vincent Smith Art Museum," Springfield, MA: Springfield Library and Museums Association, 1999, pg. 14-17.
"Survey of American Paintings," Pittsburgh, PA: Carnegie Institute, Department of Fine Arts, 1940, no. 188.
Illustration:
Image on file.
New York, Gallery of Modern Art Including the Huntington Hartford Collection, "George Bellows: Paintings, Drawings, Lithographs," New York, 1966, pg. 30.
"Selections from the American Collections of the Museum of Fine Arts and the George Walter Vincent Smith Art Museum," Springfield, MA: Springfield Library and Museums Association, 1999, pg. 14.
Note:
The information provided about this artwork was compiled as part of the Smithsonian American Art Museum's Inventories of American Painting and Sculpture database, designed to provide descriptive and location information on artworks by American artists in public and private collections worldwide.
Repository:
Inventories of American Painting and Sculpture, Smithsonian American Art Museum, P.O. Box 37012, MRC 970, Washington, D.C. 20013-7012
Control Number:
IAP 82090023
Copy/Holding information
Smithsonian AmericanArt Museum
Control Number
Inventory of American Paintings
82090023
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