NEW YORK, NY.- In 1872, when William Merritt Chase was asked by a group of St. Louis businessmen if he would like to study in Europe with their support, he is said to have replied, “My God, I’d rather go to Europe than go to heaven.” He was not alone. In the last quarter of the 19th century it was considered de rigueur to travel to Europe to study at the academies in Paris, Dusseldorf and Munich, where Chase studied.
Earlier in the century the founding members of the Hudson River School, while they sought inspiration and a manifestation of the divine in the pristine hills and dales of the Northeast, made their way abroad. Thomas Cole traveled to England, France and Italy. From 1840 to 1841 Asher Durand traveled in Europe with three engraver friends who would eventually turn to painting: John Kensett, John Casilear and Thomas Rossiter.
Doyle’s October 4 sale of American Paintings, Furniture & Decorative Arts includes an abundance of works painted by American artists on foreign soil. In 1844, Henry Inman visited William Wordsworth at his home, Rydal Mount, in the English Lake District, in order to paint his portrait for a patron. One day, while strolling on the grounds, the poet suggested that he paint the view depicted in Rydal Water (est. $1,500-2,500). An important late work, it was exhibited at the National Academy of Design in 1845 and was included in the memorial exhibition of his work held the following year at the American Art-Union, where it was accompanied by verses by Wordsworth.
Harry Mills Walcott was among the American painters who studied in France in the 1890s. Winner of the Havemeyer Traveling Scholarship at the National Academy of Design, he entered the Académie Julian, exhibiting works at the Paris Salons. His enchanting painting The Gossips (est. $6,000-8,000), depicting a group of young women, may have been painted prior to his return to America in 1901.
The canals and palazzi of Venice attracted many American painters. Arrival by Gondola by Albion Harris Bicknell (est. $800-1,200), and Venice at Night by John Joseph Enneking (est. $3,000-5,000) demonstrate the mysterious allure of the city. Perhaps the most prominent American artist to visit the city is James Abbott MacNeill Whistler, who arrived in 1879 and fell in love with its backwater canals and decaying palazzi. Over fourteen months he completed fifty etchings and one hundred pastels, including the extraordinary White and Pink (The Palace), which sold at Doyle in 2012 for $650,500, a world record for a work on paper by Whistler.
A Philadelphia native, Edmund Darch Lewis was of the most prolific and commercially successful American landscape painters of the late 19th century. His views of Pennsylvania, New York and New England were avidly collected by Philadelphia art patrons, and by the early 1880s he had amassed a fortune. The large, lush landscapes that he painted between 1860 and 1876 reflect the influence of his famous contemporaries Frederic Edwin Church and Albert Bierstadt. View of Cuba, painted in 1860, is surely one of his most beautiful tropical landscapes (est. $25,000-35,000).
The Pre-Raphaelite painter Henry Roderick Newman studied in Paris but spent much of his life in Egypt, where he visited for several months each year. He depicted archaeological sites in exquisitely rendered watercolors, such as Among the Ruins of Philae (est. $15,000-25,000), which displays his mastery of that challenging medium.
American landscapes are also represented in the auction. One of America’s most important landscape painters, John F. Kensett (1816-1872) was viewed as an heir to Thomas Cole in his leadership of the Hudson River tradition. The sale offers a gemlike 1861 view of figures gazing out to sea near a promontory. With its poetic juxtaposition of rugged headland and shimmering water, this is a signature example of his mature style (est. $80,000-130,000).
A lovely view of the Delaware River, in which resting cattle and details of the landscape are picked out by the rays of a rising sun, was painted by George Inness (1825-1894) around 1860-63, after his return from trips to France and Italy. Interestingly, this small landscape was acquired by John F. Kensett, one of the leading lights of the Hudson River School, and it remained in his family until 1913 (est. $8,000-12,000).
The sale is also rich in American still lifes. Although the 18th-century Royal Academy in London considered still life painting the most trivial of themes for artists to pursue, in 19th-century America, still life, first championed by the prolific Peale family, exploded in popularity. Offerings in the upcoming sale feature exquisite examples encompassing a broad range of movements: from the quietly lush composition of Mary Jane Peale (est. $8,000-12,000) with an apple just past its prime (a poignant reminder of the fleeting nature of life) to a 20th century riff on a 19th century theme by the surrealist John Wilde (est. $5,000-7,000). Also noteworthy are examples by William Mason Brown, George Forster, De Scott Evan, George Cochran Lambdin, John William Hill, John Casilear and William Michael Harnett.
Other sale highlights include fine American silver, furniture, tall case clocks, Chinese Export porcelain, rugs and Audubon, Currier & Ives and topographical prints.
The public is invited to the exhibition on view from September 30 through October 2. Doyle is located at 175 East 87th Street in New York.
