On view now
Amber hour
Poster: Simon Denis, Cloud study (early evening), ca. 1786–1806. The Met Open Access (CC0).
Sky studies and the late light of Lisbon, from Constable’s clouds to living painters.
Dates
12 September 2026 to 18 January 2027
Rooms
Rooms 1 to 3
In the show
A selection of the works on the walls
Simon Denis
Cloud study (early evening), ca. 1786–1806, oil on paper, 22.5 × 25.7 cm
John Constable
Cloud study, 1830–35, watercolour over graphite, 12.7 × 15.2 cm
Joseph Wright of Derby
Cloud study, 1774–75, brush and wash over graphite, 23.4 × 17.1 cm
Sanford Robinson Gifford
Isola Bella in Lago Maggiore, 1871, oil on canvas, 51.4 × 91.4 cm
John Frederick Kensett
Twilight on the Sound, Darien, Connecticut, 1872, oil on canvas, 29.2 × 62.2 cm
Harvey O. Young
Sunset, ca. 1870–80, oil on canvas, 50.8 × 76.2 cm
About the exhibition
Amber hour gathers oil sketches of the sky made outdoors in the late eighteenth century and hangs them beside canvases painted in Lisbon this year. The rooms follow the light of one evening, from the last clear blue to the first storm.
Three rooms, one evening
Room 1 holds the small studies on paper, hung at eye level so you can read the brushwork. Room 2 opens onto larger canvases of lakes and harbours at dusk. Room 3 is dim and quiet, with the night pictures and a bench facing the window.
Clara Nogueira and Tomás Vale painted new work for the show from the roof of the museum across September and October. Their canvases hang without labels on the first wall, so you meet the weather before the names.
Talks and openings
Around the exhibition
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