American School, circa 1820)

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Description

American School
A Rare and Important Schoolgirl Academy Watercolor: Maria
watercolor on paper
14 5/8 by 16 3/4 in. 37.5 by 42.5cm

painted in the Connecticut River Valley circa 1800-1820; in the original gilt frame.

Provenance

Elizabeth Skinner, Holyoke, Massachusetts
Historic Stoudwater Stevens-Leavitt House, Massachusetts
Felice Zweig, New York

Catalogue Note

This watercolor, based on Laurence Sterne's 1768 novel A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy, depicts his heroine Maria in a landscape full of symbolic trees, posed mournfully on a rock with her lap dog and flute. In the distance a ship is under full sail, and a town can be seen on the far bank of the river.

For a similar piece, Solitude, in the Karolik Collection, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, see Sue Welsh Reed and Carol Troyen, Awash in Color, pp. 19-21, fig. 8.