Theodore Robinson 1852 - 1896

Estate of the artist (sold: American Art Association, New York, Oil Paintings and Studies by the Late Theodore Robinson, March 24, 1898, no. 35)
William T. West, Roselle, New Jersey
Private Collection, Casanovia, Virginia
Berry-Hill Galleries, New York
Acquired by the present owner from the above, 1989

We are grateful to Spanierman Gallery for providing the following essay.

From 1888 until 1892, Theodore Robinson spent most of his time in Giverny, inspired by the Normandy countryside and the example of his good friend and fellow artist Claude Monet.  Eschewing the glaring, high-keyed color contrasts and dissolution of form associated with orthodox Impressionism, he instead developed a painterly style characterized by a soft tonal palette, structured compositions and a lingering concern for solid draftsmanship. Robinson's distinctive approach earned him critical success from the American art world back home; he won the Society of American Artist's Webb Prize in 1890, and its Shaw Fund Award in 1892.  Soon he was being hailed as one of the foremost American exponents of the Impressionist aesthetic. 

Robinson returned permanently to New York in December 1892, firmly resolved to "paint American" and eager to adapt his palette and style to the indigenous American topography.  His initial forays into regional scenery began in March 1893, when he spent several weeks in Virginia with his friend John Armstrong Chanler and his wife, the former Amélie Rives, at Castle Hill, the ancestral home of the Rives family and the subject of House in Virginia.  Located in Albermarle County, fashionable horse country to the northeast of Charlottesville, this venerable house was, and remains, one of Virginia's best known historical and architectural landmarks—home to two of the first families of Virginia and one of only a handful of structures that pre-date the War of Independence.

Second in historical importance only to Thomas Jefferson's Monticello, Castle Hill occupies a unique place in Virginia's early history.  The earliest portion of the house was built in 1764 by Dr. Thomas Walker, a physician, politician, gentleman farmer and an explorer of the American West who also happened to be Jefferson's guardian. During the Revolutionary War, on June 3, 1871, Jack Jouette (the "Paul Revere of the South") stopped at Castle Hill for refreshments and a fresh mount before continuing south to Louisa County in order to warn then-governor Jefferson of an impending raid by the British.

Walker's granddaughter Judith Page Walker later inherited the house prior to her 1818 marriage to William Cabell Rives, a United States senator, two-time Ambassador to France and scion of one of the state's oldest and proudest families.  In 1824 the Rives' commissioned Captain John Perry to expand Castle Hill by adding a two-story brick Federal exterior—the façade as depicted in Robinson's painting—and adjoining wings.  The home's grandeur was further heightened by a Tuscan-columned porch, high windows and an 800-foot front lawn based on a design from a French estate.

Castle Hill eventually descended to Amélie Rives, Robinson's friend, who used one of the spacious second story front rooms to pen her short stories, poems and, most notably, the highly scandalous novelette The Quick or the Dead (1888).  Following her divorce from John Chanler in 1895, Amélie married the Russian sculptor, Prince Pierre Troubestzkoy in the drawing room at Castle Hill.  In the ensuing years, the house continued its role as a gathering place for the intellectual and social elite, receiving such visitors as the writer H.L. Mencken, the photographers Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Steichen, and the actress Katherine Hepburn. 

Robinson arrived at Castle Hill on March 6, 1893 and remained for three weeks, during which time he painted this lovely view of the house, a canvas that exemplifies the most salient features of the artist's mature style. In the work, Robinson crops the upper part of the scene, applying this popular impressionist device as a means of creating a vital sense of immediacy. This effect is heightened by the loose, open brushwork Robinson used to describe the landscape elements, a technique that is balanced by his firmer delineation of the architecture. His palette, wherein rich greens, ivory and buff tones merge and mingle with a bright red-orange and touches of yellow, blue and mauve, captures the glow of spring sunshine on this tranquil southern afternoon.

House in Virginia depicts not only one of the most beautiful homes in Virginia, but one that played a significant role in the nation's political and cultural history.  The painting underscores the unique way in which Robinson manipulated form and color to evoke nuances of light and atmosphere. House in Virginia stands as a pictorial souvenir of his trip to the south, and one of his earliest impressionist depictions of American scenery—a precursor to the equally lyrical views he would go on to paint in upstate New York, Connecticut and Vermont.