Small French Paintings from the Bequest of Ailsa Mellon Bruce

June 1, 1978 – April 1, 1979
East Building, Ground Floor, Northeast, Pod I (2,000 sq. ft.)

Claude Monet, *Ships Riding on the Seine at Rouen*, 1872/1873, oil on canvas, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection, 1970.17.43

This exhibition is no longer on view at the National Gallery.

Overview: 59 small paintings were shown, the first East Building installation of the works assembled by dress designer Captain Edward Molyneux for his Paris apartment and later purchased by Ailsa Mellon Bruce for the Gallery. The collection had been exhibited at the Gallery in 1952. Always popular with the public, a group of the small 19th-century pictures has frequently been on exhibition ever since in the ground floor galleries, northeast or northwest, along with several other small-scale impressionist works from other donors.

Organization: Gaillard Ravenel and Mark Leithauser designed the exhibition and Gordon Anson designed the lighting.

Catalog: Small French Paintings from the Bequest of Ailsa Mellon Bruce, by David E. Rust. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1978.