Sarah J. Prentiss (1823-1877)

Hollis Taggart Galleries, New York (sold: Sotheby's, New York, December 1, 2004, lot 93, illustrated)
Acquired by the present owner at the above sale

Sarah J. Prentiss was born in Paris, Maine, north of Portland, where she lived most of her life. In her biography of the artist published in 1893, Abbie P. Godfrey wrote, “That part of the extensive town of Paris which was her early home, was a wide rich valley, offering her a continual feast, in views of pleasant mountains, woods and fields. Being susceptible to the beauties of Nature and facile with her pen, her artistic fancies found their earliest expression in poetry. Like most dwellers in those mountain regions, her means were limited, and her time fully occupied with everyday duties, leaving little leisure for the cultivation of art. It was the dream of her life to sit out of doors with palette and brush, and study the wonderful form and coloring of the hills about her; but that dream was not realized all at once. She took advantage of such opportunities as presented themselves, however, and in 1859 she studied under Mr. Tuckerman, in the School of Design in Boston, chiefly in drawing from casts.

“...Her works were neither manifold, nor widely known. That her talent was versatile is illustrated by the fact that one friend alone inherits from among her paintings, one grand scene from the ‘Bavarian Alps;’ one ‘Figure kneeling at Devotions’ (painted from living model); the ‘Portrait of her pet dog Hector;’ a heaping ‘Platter of Apples,’ which are themselves the portraits of every sort that grows at Paris; as well as a ‘Cluster of Leaves’ of divers[e] kinds” (Leaflets of Artists, Bangor, Maine, 1893, pp. 21-23). This Cluster of Leaves may in fact refer to the present painting.