Daniel Ridgway Knight

Private Collection, New York
Acquired by descent from the above

Montclair, New Jersey, Montclair Art Museum; Evanston, Illinois, Terra Museum of American Art; Seattle, Washington, Henry Art Gallery, Down Garden Paths: The Floral Environment in American Art, October 1, 1983 - June 24, 1984

William H. Gerdt, Down Garden Paths: The Floral Environment in American Art, Montclair, 1983, exh. cat., p. 136, illustrated p. 64
“Down Garden Paths,” American Artist, vol. 47, 1983, p. 100

The following condition report was kindly provided by Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.: This painting was recently restored, but would benefit from further attention. Although the work is lined, two old tears in the original canvas have begun to become quite visible again. One tear passes through the left forearm, measuring about 4 inches, and the other goes through the knee below the right elbow and measures about 3 inches. There has been no abrasion to the paint layer and no staining or weakness has developed. Under ultraviolet light, some retouches along the two damages mentioned above are visible, but throughout the remainder of the picture, the paint layer seems to be untouched. If the lining were changed, these damages would cease to be visible.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Daniel Ridgway Knight was born into a strict Quaker family in Philadelphia. Art was considered immoral and banned at home, but his determination and will was so strong that he would secretly copy engravings at the Franklin library as a teenager in his free time. His talent was surely evident and with the intervention of his grandfather he attended the prestigious Pennsylvania Academy of The Fine Arts, where he had such notable classmates as Mary Cassatt, Thomas Eakins, and Earl Shinn among others. Despite being a part of this thriving community of artists who would later help to define American art history of the late nineteenth century, Ridgway Knight sailed for France in early 1861 and enrolled in the École des Beaux-Arts, where he worked under Alexandre Cabanel (see lot 72), and in the atelier of Charles-Gabriel Gleyre. He went home to Philadelphia during the American Civil War, but returned to France in 1871 for his honeymoon and remained for the rest of his life.

Following Ridgway Knight's return, he began painting rural scenes with peasant figures, often absorbed in contemplation or idyllic diversions, as in the present work. His peaceful depiction and idealization of the detached tranquility of the countryside's people are what separate his paintings from those of his Barbizon contemporaries such as Jean-François Millet. As the art critic George Sheldon wrote in discussion on Ridgway Knight: “[He] does not see the sadness of French peasant life, but its gladness. He is neither a Millet nor a Zola” (George Sheldon, Recent Ideals of American Art, New York, 1889, p. 18). Yet he was still concerned with authenticity and went so far as to buy clothes from local villagers to dress his models. Ridgway Knight not only painted these country folk, but also knew them personally. On a number of occasions he was asked to act as a godfather to the children of his models who were sure to receive a handsome gift from him if they later married. Perhaps rather sentimentally, Ridgway Knight viewed peasants as content and happy folk and truly believed that they found peace in their work. In 1888, when accused of such sentimentality, he told George Sheldon: "These peasants....all save money and are small capitalists and investors. They enjoy life. They work hard, to be sure but plenty of people do that. They love their native soil. In their hours of ease they have countless diversions; and the women know how to be merry in their hours of toil" (as quoted in R.B. Knight, Ridgway Knight: A Master of the Pastoral Genre, exh. cat., Cornell University, 1989, p. 7).