Barn Builders
Classification:
Date:
1836
Medium:
Oil on wood
Dimensions:
Overall: 20 3/4 x 14 3/4 x 1 1/4 in. (52.7 x 37.5 x 3.2 cm)
Credit Line:
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Sturges III
Object Number:
1991.2.1
Gallery Label:
"Barn Builders" is one of a series of door panels that the New York art collector Luman Reed (1785-1836) commissioned to enhance the overall appearance of the art gallery in his Manhattan townhouse. As was fashionable among other elite American collectors, the floor plan of Reed's gallery was a double parlor. Two small doors opened into each of the two rooms, and two larger doors divided the double parlor, all of which had recessed panels. With the passion of a true collector, Reed was not one to waste valuable space for displaying works of art and decided to fill the door recesses with original paintings. Calling on Thomas Cole, Asher B. Durand, George Whiting Flagg, and William Sidney Mount to contribute to the scheme, Reed commissioned panels of simple genre subjects, which were to be executed in a free and uncomposed manner. Fourteen of the original panel paintings survive, four of which are by Cole and the rest attributed to Durand. The New-York Historical Society acquired six of the surviving panels by Durand, including this one, through generous donations from descendents of Reed's family and that of his business partner, Jonathan Sturges. The other eight panels are dispersed among private collections and the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut.
Provenance: Mr. Luman Reed, Mrs. Luman Reed Barker, Mr. and Mrs. Dudley Barber Fuller, Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Sturges, Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Sturges, Jr., Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Sturges, III
Bibliography:
Noble, Louis Legrand, The Life and Works of Thomas Cole, Hensonville, New York: Black Dome Press, 1964, pp. 155-65.
Parry, Elwood, Thomas Cole's "The Course of Empire": A Study in Serial Imagery, PhD Dissertation, Yale, 1970, pp. 70-3.
Lawall, David B., Asher Brown Durand: His Art and Art Theory in Relation to his Times, Submitted to Princeton University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, March 1966, pp. 68, 188-92. 620.
Lawall, David B., Asher B. Durand: A Documentary Catalogue of the Narrative and Landscape Paintings, New York & London, Garland Publishing, Inc., 1978, pp. 8-10.
Frankenstein, Alfred, William Sidney Mount, New York, NY: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1975, pp. 69-70.
Koke, Richard J., American Landscape and Genre Paintings in the New York Historical Society, Vol. I, New York: The New-York Historical Society, 1982, pp. 304-6, 402-4.
Tufts, Eleanor, "Realism Revisited: Goya's Impact on George Bellows and other American Responses to the Spanish Presence in Art," Arts, No. 57, February 1983, PP. 105-13.
Foshay, Ella M., Luman Reed's Picture Gallery: Pioneer Collection of American Art, New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1990, pp. 38-9, 67-9, 205-6.
Burgard, Timothy Anglin, "New Discoveries in American Art," American Art Journal, Vol. 23, No. 1, 1991, pp. 70-4.
Date Begin:
0
Date End:
1836
eMuseum Object ID:
20142
Due to ongoing research, information about this object is subject to change.
American Full Rig Ships in Chinese Water (Macao?).
Classification:
Highlight:
Not promoted
Medium:
Oil on linen
Dimensions:
Overall: 18 1/4 x 23 3/4 x 7/8 in. ( 46.4 x 60.3 x 2.2 cm )
Object Number:
X.711
Date Begin:
0
Date End:
0
eMuseum Object ID:
20067
Due to ongoing research, information about this object is subject to change.
June Woods (Germantown)
Collections:
Classification:
Date:
1864
Medium:
Oil on linen
Dimensions:
framed: 47 x 40 1/2 x 4 in. ( 119.4 x 102.9 x 10.2 cm )
Overall: 36 x 29 x 1 in. ( 91.4 x 73.7 x 2.5 cm )
Credit Line:
The Robert L. Stuart Collection, the gift of his widow Mrs. Mary Stuart
Object Number:
S-127
Marks:
signature and date: lower right: "Wm. T. Richards, Phila 1864"
Gallery Label:
Richards's painting is listed with the title Germantown Woods in the catalog published by the New York Public Library, but research by Linda S. Ferber for her study on the artist in 1973 has revealed its earlier title of June Woods and earlier exhibition under that name. Richards always considered this one of his "most notable" paintings.
Richards embraced the Hudson River School as a model early in his career. For a brief time in the early 1860s, however, he altered his technique and compositional approach in response tot the Pre-Raphaelite aesthetics of the English critic John Ruskin. Ruskin's call for absolute fidelity to nature manifested itself in the United States in a radical group of artists who formed the Association for the Advancement of Truth in Art to which Richards was elected in 1863. The minutely detailed foliage ofthis scene near Richards's Germantwon, Pennsylvania home aligns this painting with the American Pre-Raphaelite movement, while the vertical format demonstrates his continuing allegiance to Durand's model for portraying the forest interior.
Date Begin:
0
Date End:
1864
eMuseum Object ID:
20064
Due to ongoing research, information about this object is subject to change.
Landscape- Sunset
Classification:
Date:
1851
Medium:
Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
Overall: 8 1/4 x 14 5/16 x 7/8 in. ( 21 x 36.4 x 2.2 cm )
Credit Line:
The Robert L. Stuart Collection, the gift of his widow Mrs. Mary Stuart
Object Number:
S-19
Marks:
inscriptions: Signed lower right (dated?): A. Wust
Date Begin:
0
Date End:
1851
eMuseum Object ID:
19997
Due to ongoing research, information about this object is subject to change.
Claus Doscher (1830-1910)
Classification:
Date:
n.d.
Medium:
Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
Overall: 30 x 25 in. ( 76.2 x 63.5 cm )
Credit Line:
Gift of Mrs. J. Herbert Stevens and her sister, Mrs. Lucile Carter
Object Number:
1950.197
Gallery Label:
The subject was a prominent New York sugar merchant and banker who was born in Germany and came to America at the age of eighteen. He began his career as a grocer in New York, but in 1872 he went into sugar refining and five years later organized the Brooklyn Refining Co. His portrait was a gift to the Society from his granddaughters.
Date Begin:
0
Date End:
0
eMuseum Object ID:
19913
Due to ongoing research, information about this object is subject to change.
Sunday Morning
Collections:
Classification:
Date:
1839
Medium:
Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
Overall: 25 1/4 x 36 1/4 in. ( 64.1 x 92.1 cm )
Framed: 35 1/2 in. × 46 1/2 in. × 4 in. (90.2 × 118.1 × 10.2 cm)
Credit Line:
Gift of the children of the artist, through John Durand
Object Number:
1903.3
Inscriptions:
On back of canvas in the artist's hand: Presented to my Wife / Mary F Durand / 1840
Gallery Label:
In 1860 Durand painted a replica of this subject for W. T. Walters of Baltimore, which was later owned by his partner and subsequently by Royal G. Taft of Providence. The present location is unknown. In a letter to Durand, dated from Providence on March 2, 1876, now in the New York Public Library, Taft refused to allow this painting to be sent to the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. This version was exhibited at the NAD, 1860, no. 515, 'Sunday Morning;' and at the Durand Sale (Ortgies), 1887, no. 377, 'Sunday Morning' (lent by Royal C. Taft, Providence). For another study, sometimes called 'Landscape: Sunday Morning,' painted by Durand in 1850 for Gouvernor Kemble, see Lawall, 3:141-42, no. 266. This was the view now called 'Early Morning at Cold Spring,' owned by the Montclair Art Museum, New Jersey.
Provenance:
The artist and his family.
Bibliography:
The NY Herald, July 4, 1840, p.2, col. 4-5.
Morris, G. P., ed., "The Fine Arts: Our Landscape Painters," The New-York Mirror: A Weekly Journal, Devoted to Literature and the Fine Arts, Vol. 18, No. 4, July 18, 1840, p. 30.
Executor's Sale, Studies in Oil by Asher B. Durand, N.A., Deceased, Ortgies' Art Gallery, New York, April 13 and 14, 1887, p. 33, no. 389.
"Pictures by Durand," The New York Times, April 26, 1903, p. 34.
Johnson, Rossiter, ed., The Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans: Brief Biographies of Authors, Administrators, Clergymen, Commanders, Editors, Engineers, Jurists, Merchants, Officials, Philanthropists, Scientists, Statesmen, and Others Who Are Making American History, Boston: The Biographical Society, 1904, Vol. III, n.p.
Catalogue of the Gallery of Art of The New York Historical Society, New York: Printed for the Society, 1915, p. 39.
Born, Wolfgang, American Landscape Painting: An Interpretation, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1948, pp. 40-2, 218.
Flexner, James Thomas, That Wilder Image: The Painting of America's Native School from Thomas Cole to Winslow Homer, Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1962, p. 66.
Lawall, David B., Asher Brown Durand: His Art and Art Theory in Relation to his Times, Submitted to Princeton University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, March 1966, pp. 82, 222-5, 246-7, 285, 377, 408-9, 417, 469, 481-2, 499-500, 625, 681-4, 686.
Callow, James T., Kindred Spirits: Knickerbocker Writers and American Artists, 1807-1855, Durham, N.C., University of North Carolina Press, 1967, pp. 154-5.
Lawall, David B., Asher B. Durand: A Documentary Catalogue of the Narrative and Landscape Paintings, New York & London, Garland Publishing, Inc., 1978, pp. 30, xxxix.
The Boston Athenaeum Art Exhibition Index, 1827-1874, Boston, Massachusetts,
The Library of the Boston Athenaeum, 1980, p. 52.
Koke, Richard J., American Landscape and Genre Paintings in the New York Historical Society, Vol. I, New York: The New-York Historical Society, 1982, pp. 308-10.
Smith, Alvy Ray, compiled by, Dr. John Durand (1664-1727) of Derby Connecticut: His Family Through Four Generations Featuring the Branch of His Youngest Son Ebenezer Durand Through Ten Generations to 2003, Boston: Newbury Street Press, 2003, p. 218.
Baigell, Matthew, "Getting a Grip on God: Painting the Christianized Landscape," Within the Landscape; Essays on Nineteenth-Century American Art and Culture, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, The Trout Gallery, 2005, Introduction, pp. 131-46.
Ferber, Linda S., ed., "Asher B. Durand, American Landscape Painter," Kindred Spirits Asher B. Durand and the American Landscape, Brooklyn Museum, 2007, pp. 38, 85-8, 195, 201, 214, 221.
Leggio, Gail, "In Nature's Presence: Asher B. Durand and American Landscape," American Arts Quarterly, Spring 2007, pp. 10-1, 14-5, 18.
Date Begin:
0
Date End:
1839
eMuseum Object ID:
19883
Due to ongoing research, information about this object is subject to change.
The Story
Classification:
Date:
1865
Medium:
Oil on wood panel
Dimensions:
Overall: 18 1/8 x 14 13/16 x 1/4 in. ( 46 x 37.6 x 0.6 cm )
Credit Line:
The Robert L. Stuart Collection, the gift of his widow Mrs. Mary Stuart
Object Number:
S-9
Marks:
inscriptions: Signed, dated lower left: Plassan 1865
Date Begin:
0
Date End:
1865
eMuseum Object ID:
19803
Due to ongoing research, information about this object is subject to change.
Orrando Perry Dexter (1853-1903)
Classification:
Date:
1906
Medium:
Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
Overall: 30 x 25 in. ( 76.2 x 63.5 cm )
Credit Line:
Gift of Henry Dexter
Object Number:
1906.1
Marks:
signature and date: at left: "C. Ayer Whipple / 1906"
Gallery Label:
After the death of Orrando Perry Dexter, in 1903, his father, Henry Dexter, donated a large sum of money toward the building in which the The New-York Historical Society is now located. This portrait, which was painted posthumously from a photograph, was probably commissioned as a memorial to be presented to the Society.
Date Begin:
0
Date End:
1906
eMuseum Object ID:
19687
Due to ongoing research, information about this object is subject to change.
The Pigeon Fancier
Classification:
Date:
ca. 1960s
Medium:
oil on canvas
Dimensions:
Overall: 25 x 18 x 1 in. ( 63.5 x 45.7 x 2.5 cm )
Object Number:
1980.57
Marks:
Signature: lower right: "M KUPFERMAN"
Date Begin:
0
Date End:
1960
eMuseum Object ID:
19676
Due to ongoing research, information about this object is subject to change.
William Beekman (1725-1795)
Classification:
Date:
ca. 1761
Medium:
Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
Overall: 46 1/8 x 36 1/2 x 1 in. ( 117.2 x 92.7 x 2.5 cm )
Credit Line:
Gift of Dr. Robert S. Beekman
Object Number:
1980.51
Gallery Label:
This painting has descended in the Beekman Family.
Provenance:
Gift from Dr. Robert S. Beekman, New York
Date Begin:
0
Date End:
1761
eMuseum Object ID:
19675
Due to ongoing research, information about this object is subject to change.
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