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The Palace of the Popes and Pont d'Avignon
Carroll Beckwith (born Hannibal, MO 1852-died New York City 1917)
1911
- Medium
- oil on wood
- Classification
- Paintings
- Dimensions
- 8 3/4 x 5 1/2 in. (22.2 x 14.0 cm.)
- Culture
- Avignon
- Museum
- Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from Cooper-Hewitt Museum of Decorative Arts and Design, Smithsonian Institution
- Rights
- CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Smithsonian Institution
About this work
This painting shows a view of the pope’s palace in Avignon, across the east bank of the Rhône River in southeastern France. From 1309 until the French Revolution, Avignon belonged to the papacy, a remnant of the schism that once left Europe with two popes, one in Rome and another in Avignon. On the left side of the painting is a Roman aqueduct, a reminder that the Roman Empire once extended into France. In 1910, Carroll Beckwith traveled through several towns in France, painting dozens of scenes like this one and capturing the effects of light and color on buildings, statues, and water.
