Frederik Hendrik Kaemmerer

Knoedler, New York (acquired directly from the artist in 1875)
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (acquired from the above, April 1875, and sold, Sotheby's, New York, October 27, 1988, lot 88, illustrated)
Sale: Sotheby's, New York, May 26, 1994, lot 152, illustrated
Sale: Treasures of the Gilded Age, Property from the Masco Corporation, Sotheby's, New York, November 10, 1998, lot 209, illustrated
Private Collection, United States (acquired at the above sale and sold, Sotheby's, New York, October 29, 2002, lot 60, illustrated)
Acquired at the above sale

Paris, Salon, 1874, no. 1006 (as La plage de Schevengue, Pays-Bas)
Washington, D.C., George Washington University, Tribute to W. W. Corcoran, 1952
Washington, D.C. Corcoran Gallery of Art, Conservation in the Museum, 1972

Nestor Paturot, Le Salon de 1874, Paris, p. 221
Louis Gonse, "Salon de 1874," Gazette des Beaux-Arts, vol. X, no. 2, July 1874, p. 42
Edward Strahan, ed., The Art Treasures of America, Philadelphia, 1879, vol. I, p. 5, illustrated opp. p. 7; in the 1977 facsimile edition, vol. I, illustrated opp. p. 5
William Mcleod, Catalogue of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1887, p. 56, no. 70
Maurice Hamel, "Ombres et Figures: F. H. Kaemmerer," Figaro-Illustré, July 1902, p. 16, 20, illustrated
Illustrated Handbook of Paintings and Sculptures, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1926, p. 51, no. 178
Robert L. Herbert, Monet on the Normandy Coast, Tourism and Painting, 1867-1886, New Haven and London, 1994, p. 15, illustrated p. 19, fig. 23
DeCourcy E. McIntosh, "Goupil's Album: Marketing Salon Painting in the Late Nineteenth Century," Twenty-First-Century Persepctives on Nineteenth-Century Art, Essays in Honor of Gabriel P. Weisberg, Petra ten-Doesschate Chu and Laurinda S. Dixon, eds., Newark, 2008, p. 81

The following condition report was kindly provided by Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.: This painting has been well restored and is in lovely condition. The canvas has been lined. The only restoration that can be seen under ultraviolet light is in the left center side of the sky. It is an L-shaped break in the canvas that runs about 6 inches in length. The texture of the paint is good and there is no abrasion. Although there may be a couple of isolated retouches elsewhere, they are not apparent. The work should be hung as is.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Frederik Hendrik Kaemmerer's Beach at Scheveningen, Holland, is a tour-de-force and one of the visual touchstones of the Belle Époque. Painted in 1874, it was exhibited at the Paris Salon the same year, where the artist was awarded a médaille de troisième classe and the work received great acclaim, prompting its swift acquisition by the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. in 1875 (and in similar fashion to Frederick Arthur Bridgman's Procession of the Bull Apis, lot 66).

The panoramic view of this seaside sanctuary, occupied by the most fashionable ladies of the leisure class, is likely the artist’s most ambitious tableau. Kaemmerer's elegant and lyrical composition is a well ordered frieze of figures stretching wide across the canvas on this brilliantly sunny expanse of sand. The clean and fresh air that comes in sprays off of the open sea is palpable and the dazzling summer sun puts the figures in the foreground in crisp relief, highlighting the meticulous details of their finery.

Based on the un-posed casualness of the scene and the artist’s obvious ability to capture a snapshot-like moment in time, one can imagine Kaemmerer himself standing at his massive easel observing and transcribing the scene before him. Instead, he has joined the bathers and situated himself in the right side of the composition, in a smart grey flannel suit, and he invites the viewer to do the same.

As Edward Strahan described the scene in Art Treasures of America: "here we have all the belles and dandies from all Dutchland, as well as those from France and Britain, blinding sunbeams which reduce everything to a chalky stare of light. The freshest flounces and modes of 1874 are displayed on the hired garden-chairs. The priest in broad hat and bands, feeling himself in a state of highest clarity... (and with his aristocratic beautiful parishioner especially), twirls his thumbs and leans over with that expression of delicate benevolence which tolerates even lightness, and which is more akin to worldliness than any other virtue the good man can select out of his repertory of sacred graces. A beautiful invalid reclines languidly, her feet supported by a stool; a fair fashionable girl bends over a brown fishermaiden who offers shells for sale. City children expose their pale legs to the breakers. The whole picture is intense with light, — symphony of blonde tones. At the right, I recognize my fellow pupil at Gérôme's, Henry Frederick Kaemmerer... the scene which but for him would have remained embryotic as that year's fashion plates" (Strahan p. 5).