Edwin Lord Weeks

Marhsall Field & Co., Chicago
W.E. Mills (acquired from the above)
Hanzel Auction Galleries, Chicago
Acquired from the above by the present owner in circa 1970

Very good condition. Lined. Under UV: Varnish fluoresces throughout. No inpainting apparent.
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Associated most closely with scenes of bustling Arab markets, Indian architecture, and other, urban scenes, Edwin Lord Weeks's brilliance as a landscape painter is rarely appreciated.  The present work, created early in Weeks's Orientalist career, takes as its subject the Martil Valley, near the coast of northern Morocco.  Already present are the hallmarks of Weeks's distinctive style: rich colors, vigorous brushstrokes, and a remarkable sensitivity to the transitory effects of sunlight and shadow.

Shepherd on a Hill, Tetuan may have been inspired by one of Weeks's most intrepid excursions into Morocco, undertaken with his wife in 1878.  (From 1872, Weeks would travel regularly to that country.)  Anxious to escape the typical tourist destinations, the couple planned to visit Rabat on the Atlantic coast.  Crossing the Strait of Gibraltar, they landed at Tangier, about 40 miles from Tetuan.  According to Weeks's friend, the minister and author Alexander S. Twombly (1832-1907), their (often nerve-wracking) overland journey had a transformative effect on Weeks's art: "Anyone who has seen the fruits of those six months down on the coast of Morocco will testify that Weeks won his golden spurs then and there," (quoted in Alexander S. Twombly, "Edwin Lord Weeks," unidentified newspaper clipping, 1903, in the Weeks-Goodwin family scrapbook, pp. 24-25).  The similarities between this the present work and William Holman Hunt's Our English Coasts (1852, Tate Britain), considered one of the most extraordinary landscapes in nineteenth-century European art, begins to suggest the truth behind Twombly's words.

This catalogue note was written by Dr. Emily M. Weeks.