Daniel Ridgway Knight

Private Collection, Pennsylvania
Rehs Galleries Inc., New York
Private collection, United States (acquired from the above)

The following condition report was kindly provided by Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.: This painting is in good condition. The canvas is un-lined but the tacking edges have been reinforced. The paint layer is clean and retouched. The retouches are visible only in one area in the upper right sky where a small break in the canvas approximately one inch long has been retouched.
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Tying a stem heavy with chrysanthemums against a stake, Ridgway Knight's model is absorbed in her work.  Her garden of carefully cultivated blossoms lies before an idyllic view of rolling green hills and a wide river.  Masterful compositions like Chrysanthemums allowed American-born Ridgway Knight to become one of France's best-loved painters of rural life.  With study at the École des Beaux-Arts and an early trip to Barbizon, the artist gained a deep appreciation for the academic modeling of figures and painting en plein air. The gardener of the present work resembles many of the models the artist captured near his home in Poissy, a rural town outside Paris, and later in Rolleboise, his home in the 1890s.  More than subjects of his paintings, these women were also friends to Ridgway Knight. As George Sheldon described in 1888, "Knight is a familiar figure in the field and in the cottage.  A hundred times he has been called upon to act as godfather to the children of these models, and whenever one of them is married, she is sure to receive from Mr. Knight a handsome present in gold" (George Sheldon, Recent Ideals in American Art, New York and London, 1889, p. 18).  The farming women  Ridgway Knight depicted were painted from life, but the artist gave them ideal proportions and a refined elegance, a legacy from his academic training.  Ingeniously, he furnished an all-glass studio near his home, which allowed him to observe his models in nature yet protected from the elements that would otherwise disrupt his work.  In this blend of the natural and the studied, the model's  clothing is built of a palette that echoes the colors of the flowers, water and sky that surround her, and her pose duplicates the composition of the tall flowers in front of her.  She appears to become one with the landscape as she is absorbed in her daily tasks.