Crosscurrents: American and European Masterpieces from the Permanent Collection

Some of the most notable paintings from the National Gallery of Art√¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s American, British, Spanish, and 18th- and early 19th-century French collections are now on view in the Ground Floor central galleries of the West Building while the Main Floor galleries undergo renovation. This instal... Read more

Some of the most notable paintings from the National Gallery of Art’s American, British, Spanish, and 18th- and early 19th-century French collections are now on view in the Ground Floor central galleries of the West Building while the Main Floor galleries undergo renovation.

This installation features many works from the French school, such as Jacques-Louis David’s intense portrait The Emperor Napoleon in His Study at the Tuileries (1812), Jean Siméon Chardin’s The House of Cards (1735), and A Young Girl Reading (c. 1776) by Jean-Honoré Fragonard. Among the most popular works from the British and American schools on display are James McNeill Whistler’s delicate Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl (1862), John Singleton Copley’s dramatic Watson and the Shark (1778), and Joseph Mallord William Turner’s moonlit harbor scene Keelmen Heaving in Coals by Moonlight (1835).