Autumnal Landscape
Artist
James Craig Nicoll
(American, 1847 - 1918)
Datec. 1885
MediumWatercolor on paper
DimensionsOverall: 5 7/8 × 9 5/16in. (14.9 × 23.7cm)
Image: 5 × 7 13/16in. (12.7 × 19.8cm)
Image: 5 × 7 13/16in. (12.7 × 19.8cm)
ClassificationsDRAWINGS
Credit LineMuseum Purchase
Terms
Object number75.88
Description On View
Not on viewCollections
CopyrightNo known copyright restrictions.
Label TextJames Craig Nicoll is remembered today chiefly as a marine painter and etcher but, as this intimate landscape attests, he was also a competent watercolorist. He served as secretary of the National Water Color Society and regularly exhibited his work at the American Society of Painters in Water Colors from the late-1860s through at least the mid-1870s.
This work shows Nicoll’s allegiance to the style of landscape painting that was popular in the United States following the Civil War. Under the influence of French Barbizon School landscape painting, the American works painted in this style were poetic compositions painted in broad washes with warm, autumnal tones. This aesthetic differs from almost all the other landscapes displayed in this gallery, which were painted in the Hudson River School style and feature a close fidelity to the details of nature.
Frederick Havemeyer of New York originally owned Nicoll’s watercolor. He was the father of Henry Osborne Havemeyer who, with his wife Louisine, were pioneering American patrons of art at the turn of the nineteenth century and important benefactors of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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