Museum of Fine Arts 220 State Street Springfield Massachusetts 01103 Accession Number: 49.02
Date:
1918
Notes:
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.
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.
(Lower left, signature by Emma Story (Mrs. George) Bellows:) Geo. Bellows/ESB
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.
Summary:
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.