Permanent Collection - Gallery Two
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Erastus Salisbury Field
(Leverett, Massachusetts, 1805 - 1900, Plumtrees, Massachusetts) Portrait of Bartlett Doten 1833-1834 Nineteenth Century Oil on canvas 34 in. x 27 1/8 in. (86.36 cm x 68.9 cm) Gift of Mr. and Mrs. James Lucien Loeb 1986.0005.0001 The sitter, Bartlett Doten, was a merchant and manufacturer in Sheffield, Massachusetts, and Bridgeport, Connecticut. The descendant of John Doty, a passenger on the Mayflower, Doten was born in 1807 in Plymouth. His wife, Augusta Mason, (1986.5.2) was born in 1814 to Colonel Darius Mason and Sarah Root of Sheffield, Massachusetts. The couple married in Sheffield in 1833 and had four children. Bartlett died in Bridgeport, Massachusetts in 1867. The museum’s portraits are believed to have been painted around the time of the couple's marriage. Erastus Salisbury Field was an itinerant portrait painter, largely self-taught, traveling from town to town in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York, serving mostly wealthy rural patrons. Field compensated for his shortcomings in terms of depicting anatomy and illusionistic space by incorporating meticulous details such as jewelry and lace. |
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Nicola Marschall
(1829 - 1917) First Lieutenant J. Mack Walker, C.S.A. 1865 Nineteenth Century Oil on canvas 90 1/2 in. x 39 3/4 in. (229.87 cm x 100.97 cm) Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Hopson Owen 1938.0001 Nicola Marschall was a native of Prussia who arrived in the Port of New Orleans in 1849. He travelled to the Alabama Black Belt, where he set up as a portraitist depicting members of the planter families who lived in central Alabama. His portrait of J. Mack (John Marshall) Walker, a First Lieutenant in the Confederate Army, was a posthumous one, probably based upon a photographic carte de visite. Walker was a member of the family that owned Cedar Grove Plantation in Marengo County. He died May 24, 1864 as the result of a wound he received at the Battle of Resaca in Georgia. |
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Frank Duveneck
(Covington, Kentucky, 1848 - 1919, Cincinnati, Ohio) Study of a Nude ca. 1877-1880 Nineteenth Century Oil on canvas 34 in. x 26 in. (86.36 cm x 66.04 cm) Monogrammed, lower left: FD Gift of Mrs. Margaret Freer 1936.0049 Duveneck’s "Study of a Nude" exemplifies an important teaching technique of the Munich Academy in the nineteenth century; it is also consistent with the School's focus on method rather than subject. The loose qualities of this “oil sketch” were intentional, meant to draw attention to the manner in which the artist handled paint. Instructors such as Wilhelm Liebl (1844–1900) made such pieces to demonstrate to students the appropriate way to apply and manipulate the oil medium. In Munich, this meant the difficult technique of painting "alla prima", which required the artist to blend paints either on the canvas or on the palette to create specific transitions from one tone to the next. Here, Duveneck established the rich tonal values of the skin on this figure’s back and arms by mixing colors in broad, sweeping strokes. Of course such works were executed rapidly, beginning with a warm, dark wash of paint over the canvas and building up the form progressively, with the goal of maintaining the sense of the paint’s inherent fluidity. |
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William Merritt Chase
(Williamsburg, Indiana, 1849 - 1916, New York, New York) Woman in Chinese Robe 1881 Nineteenth Century Oil on canvas 20 in. x 16 in. (50.8 cm x 40.64 cm) Signed and dated, lower left, "To my friend Freer W M Chase. 1881" Gift of Mrs. Margaret Freer 1936.0001 The somber tonalities and heavily impastoed surface of "Woman in Chinese Robe" illustrate the influence of Chase’s training at Munich’s Royal Academy where the curriculum stressed the use of a dark palette. The background setting of framed paintings and drapery suggest that this canvas was created in Chase’s Tenth Street studio, a space that he occupied between about 1878 and 1895. The work is most probably a studio study. It is important as an early example of Chase’s use of a model in Oriental costume and his experimentation with Oriental motif. A fascination with Oriental imagery is apparent in Chase’s work dating from the 1880’s. A specific source of this interest is difficult to pinpoint because of the pervasive nature of Orientalism in European art from the 1860’s and in American art from the 1880’s onward. The use of Oriental costume, accessories, and pattern in Chase’s paintings reflect not only his own interest in this subject, but also his knowledge of international trends. |
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Alfred Thompson Bricher (aka Alfred Bricher)
Portsmith, New Hampshire, 1837 - 1908, Staten Island, New York) Stormy Seascape ca. 1883-1885 Nineteenth Century Oil on canvas 26 in. x 48 in. (66.04 cm x 121.92 cm) Signed, lower right, "A.T. Bricher" Gift of Babette L. and Charles H. Wampold 1989.0012 Bricher was a successful American painter of the second half of the nineteenth century who specialized in marine subjects. He began his career around 1856, and while he may have enjoyed some level of professional training, it appears he was largely self-taught. The artist seems to have first visited Grand Manan Island in New Brunswick, Canada, in 1874. He returned there in 1883 and made a sketch that was the source for this painting. The work is a study of grey skies and mist, with the added poetic touch of a ship's wreckage on the shore. No human figures are depicted, but man's relationship with the sea is suggested by the derelict debris and by the ships on the distant horizon. |
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Anonymous American
View of Montgomery ca. 1870-1880 Nineteenth Century Oil on canvas 36 1/2 in. x 60 1/8 in. (92.71 cm x 152.72 cm) Gift of Landmarks Foundation of Montgomery, Inc. by transfer 2007.0018 Unlike many topographical paintings that focus solely on the built environment of a community, this work prominently portrays the inhabitants of Montgomery and their activities in the late nineteenth century. In the center are vignettes of daily goings-on designed to educate the viewer about the diverse elements of what was still an almost frontier-type settlement. A variety of figures illustrate the cross section of occupations, races, and economic classes found in Montgomery. Based upon buildings recognizable in the work, it is estimated that the painting dates from the decade between 1870 and 1880. Although the areas south and east of Montgomery and the Alabama River are today an integral part of the city, at the time the population was centered on the riverfront and Commerce Street, extending up to Court Square. Transportation allowed for the further growth of the city. The work offers a study in contrasts. On the right are mule and horse drawn vehicles; a wagon holds a load of cotton and the carriage appears to be part of a funeral procession en route to a small cemetery on the right edge of the painting. Almost obscured by a row of trees is a railroad train that emits a cloud of bluish-gray steam across the middle of the painting. The coming of the rail system to central Alabama in 1851 was a watershed event in the expansion of the population and economic base. |
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Elihu Vedder
(New York, New York, 1836 - 1923, Rome, Italy) The Soul of the Sunflower 1881-1882 Nineteenth Century Copper-plated cast iron 34 in. x 55 5/8 in. x 2 5/8 in. (86.36 cm x 141.29 cm x 6.67 cm) Signed, recto, bottom of center panel, "Elihu Vedder" Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts Association Purchase 1992.0001a-c The inspiration for "The Soul of the Sunflower" comes from a classical myth featuring the nymph, Clythie, whose story was the source for an explanation of sunflowers. Clythie fell in love with Apollo, the god of the sun. He deserted Clythie, and in despair she went nine days without food or drink, keeping her head turned toward the sun. As a reward for her fidelity, she was changed into a sunflower. The center section features a head shown from the front surrounded by long wavy hair and ray-like forms that radiate from the central aureole into the flanking panels. Multiple sunflower blossoms are scattered around the bottom of the central panel and the outer edges of the flanking panels. This relief was designed for use as a fireback; its three panels would have lined the interior of a fireplace and protected the brick from heat. Vedder's firebacks were hand-crafted in relatively small numbers and marketed to upper and middle class consumers eager to improve the aesthetics of their domestic environs with decorative arts that embodied period preferences for simple forms and earth-toned imagery inspired by nature. This program was in keeping with decorative arts ideals of the Arts and Crafts Movement espoused by English proponents William Morris and John Ruskin, and Americans Gustaf Stickley and Louis Comfort Tiffany |