Julian Alden Weir

William Macbeth, New York
Albert Elliott McVitty, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania (sold: Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, December 15, 1949, lot 46)
Milch Galleries, New York (acquired from the above sale)
Private Collection, New York (acquired from the above, circa 1955)
By descent in the family to the present owner, 1980

Connecticut, Mystic Art Association, 3rd Annual Exhibition, August 17 - 26, 1916
Art Institute of Chicago, Twenty-Nineth Annual Exhibition of American Paintings and Sculpture, November 2 - December 7, 1916
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, One Hundred and Nineteenth Annual Exhibition, February 2, 1918, no. 344 (Jennie Sesnan Gold Medal)
New York, The Century Association, Memorial Exhibition of Paintings by the Late J. Alden Weir N.A., April 4-26, 1920, no. 37

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Catalogue of the Annual Exibition of Painting and Sculpture, no. 344, illustrated
American Federation of Arts, The American Magazine of Art, vol. 9, 1918, illustrated p. 420
Dorothy Weir Young, The Life and Letters of J. Alden Weir, New Haven, 1960

Oil on canvas, unlined. Surface in good condition. Under ultraviolet light; no apparent inpainting.
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.

After studying in France at the École des Beaux-Arts and with Jean-Léon Gérôme, Weir regularly returned to Europe during the late 1870s and early 1880s to secure paintings on behalf of private collectors, including mine operator and speculator Erwin Davis. It was Davis, who in 1882, proposed a trade to the artist.  For Weir's help with expanding his collection and, speculation has it, for one particular painting Davis coveted, he offered the artist a 153-acre farm in Branchville, Connecticut.  The farm became Weir’s primary residence and main source of inspiration for the remainder of his life.
By 1916, the year in which he painted A Bit of New England, Weir had firmly established himself as a significant figure in American Art, exhibiting with the Society of Painters in Pastels, the New York Etching Club, at the Universal Exposition in Paris and the World’s Columbian Fair and had joined his friends Childe Hassam, John Twachtman, Willard Metcalf, Frank Weston Benson, Edmund C. Tarbell and others, to establish the American Impressionist group that eventually became known as the “Ten American Painters”.  Weir had also exhibited at the all-important 1913 Armory Show in New York and in 1915, had not only been elected President of the National Academy of Design, but became a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Board of Directors of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 
A Bit of New England, which depicts the countryside surrounding Weir’s beloved Connecticut home, was exhibited with notable success at the Art Institute of Chicago and later, at the Pennsylvania Academy of Art, where it won the Jennie Sesnan Gold Medal for best landscape.