Lot 31
  • 31

Francis A. Silva 1835-1886

Estimate
300,000 - 500,000 USD
bidding is closed

Description

  • Francis A. Silva
  • Red Sails at Sunset (Sailing at Sunset)
  • signed F.A. Silva and dated 1871, l.r.
  • oil on canvas
  • 15 by 30 in.
  • (38.1 by 76.2 cm)

Provenance

Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York
Acquired by the present owner from the above, 1972

Exhibited

New York, Hirschl & Adler Galleries, The American Scene: A Survey of the Life and Landscape of the 19th Century, 1969, no. 79, p. 65

Literature

Mark D. Mitchell, Francis A Silva (1835-1886): In His Own Light, New York, 2002, p. 126

Condition

Please call the department at 212-606-7280 for the condition report prepared by Lance Mayer and Gay Myers.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Catalogue Note

Before the onset of the Civil War, Francis Silva apprenticed under a local commercial painter in New York City, where he spent his days decorating signs, fire wagons and stage coaches.  Once the war started, Silva served in a New York militia regiment, rising to the rank of Captain in the 1st New York Volunteer Infantry. His military service brought him to Lynn, a town on the northeastern coast of Massachusetts, where he worked as an Army hospital steward. In 1867, Silva opened his first studio in New York's famed Tenth Street Street Studio building alongside such artists as William Merritt Chase and Winslow Homer. During the warm summer months, he returned to New England to sketch the coastline, later developing the studies he produced during these trips into finished studio works. Silva exhibited regularly at prestigious New York institutions including the National Academy of Design and the Brooklyn Academy of Art, garnering a reputation as one of the country's important luminist painters.

Between 1871 and 1876 Silva regularly painted along the banks of the Hudson River. Though he depicted a variety of light and weather conditions, he favored painting at early morning and sunset when the light in the sky produced the most dramatic effects. In Red Sails at Sunset Silva portrays the onset of dusk with a sliver of moon set in a bold, polychromatic sky. Unlike Silva's paintings from later in the decade, which possess what Mark D. Mitchell describes as a "colder, less forgiving light," the present painting has a diffuse luminosity that unifies the surface and creates a sense of tranquility (Francis A. Silva, 2002, p. 34).

Red Sails at Sunset depicts an area along the river near the town of Newburgh, located approximately sixty miles north of New York City. By the time Silva completed the painting in 1871, Newburgh had been an important hub for travel and commerce along the Hudson for well over a century. Silva includes several Hudson River sloops, the most common and well-known type of ship on the river, and a steamboat. The sloops transported both people and goods to towns along the Hudson and other local ports, and the steamboat shown at the left of Red Sails at Sunset shuttled passengers across the river between the towns of Newburgh and Beacon.