Lot 38
  • 38

Julian Alden Weir

Estimate
50,000 - 70,000 USD
bidding is closed

Description

  • Julian Alden Weir
  • The Grey Trellis
  • signed J. Alden Weir and dated 91 (lower left)
  • oil on canvas
  • 26 by 21 1/2 inches
  • (66 by 54.6 cm)

Provenance

The artist
(probably) The Art Students League, New York (acquired from the above)
Mrs. J. W. Fosdick, Boston, Massachusetts
Ferargil Galleries, New York, circa 1926
George D.J. Griffin, Cincinnati, Ohio
Private collection, Amherst, Massachusetts (sold: Sotheby’s, New York, May 30, 1985, lot 160)
Goldfield Galleries, Los Angeles, California (acquired at the above sale)
Private collection, California
James Graham & Sons, New York
Acquired by the present owner from the above, 1997

Exhibited

Amherst, Massachusetts, Amherst College, Mead Art Museum, American Impressionists, November-December 1982
New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Los Angeles, California, Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Denver, Colorado, Denver Art Museum, J. Alden Weir: An American Impressionist, October 1983-August 1984, pp. 194-95, illustrated fig. 5.6
Storrs, Connecticut, William Benton Museum of Art, University of Connecticut; Greenwich, Connecticut, Bruce Museum, J. Alden Weir: A Place of His Own, September-November 1991
New York, Vance Jordan Fine Art, Poetic Painting: American Masterworks from the Clark and Liebes Collections, October-December 2001, illustrated pl. 18

Literature

Doreen Bolger Burke, J. Alden Weir: An American Impressionist, New York, 1983, pp. 194-95, illustrated fig. 5.6
William H. Gerdts, Impressionist Paintings in America, New York, 1984, p. 162, illustrated pl. 176
Mary Brawley Hill, Furnishing the Old-Fashioned American Garden, New York, 1998, illustrated
Nicolai Cikovsky, Jr., Elizabeth Millroy, Harold Spencer and Hildegard Cummings, A Connecticut Place: Weir Farm, An American Painter's Rural Retreat, Wilton, Connecticut, 2000, pp. 67-68, 97-98, illustrated fig. 57
Susan G. Larkin, The Cos Cob Art Colony: Impressionists on the Connecticut Shore, New Haven, Connecticut, 2001, pp. 186-87, illustrated fig. 121
Michael Quick, “Living with Antiques: A Collection Where East Meets West,” The Magazine Antiques, November 2001, vol. 160, no. 5, p. 688, illustrated pl. XIV

Condition

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes, Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This canvas has a good lining. Under ultraviolet light, one can see that there is an L-shaped restoration at the top of the fence against the blossoms, which runs about 4 inches in total. One can also see a diagonal line of restoration in the middle of the gate, which probably corresponds to a 3 inch break in the canvas. There is a spot of restoration between the tree trunks in the upper right, another in the center of the right side, and a couple in the upper left corner. There is also a small restoration in the cherry blossoms in the upper center. The varnish is quite bright at present, but it does illuminate the paint layer well. Beneath the gate, there seems to be very slight separation between the warm ochre color and the lighter color beneath, and there are a few unrestored paint losses in this area. The restoration is well applied, and the painting looks well in its current state.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Catalogue Note

Before the 1890s, Julian Alden Weir’s work had focused mostly on still-life and interior subjects, but by 1891 his palette had lightened and his brushwork had loosened. A critic for Art Amateur noted in January, while reviewing a New York exhibition of his new work, that Weir was “the first among Americans to use impressionistic methods and licenses successfully.” Painted during the summer of 1891, The Grey Trellis encapsulates Weir’s subtle transition to a more impressionist style and incorporates the new color scheme and broken brushwork he would continue to develop during this decade. An intimate depiction of the artist’s garden at his farm in Branchville, Connecticut, Weir’s composition is dominated by a slightly crooked but complex grid of lavender trellis topped by a dappled white tree. The lack of any straight lines within the composition, the unbalanced, tilting birdhouse, and the trellis’ wavering shadows result in a nearly perfect, spatially-inventive asymmetry. This approach to the use of space and structure suggests his growing familiarity with Japanese art and the direction in which he was moving. Three years later, the geometric grid-like element combined with an even more complex decorative patterning of line and color would be incorporated in his most famous painting, The Red Bridge (1895, The Metropolitan Museum, New York). The scholar Doreen Bolger Burke writes, “throughout the 1890s Weir tended to paint scenes showing buildings or other structures – fences, trellises, bridges, even screens of trees or vines – in decorative interwoven or intersecting lines that both define recessional planes and enhance the works’ decorative appeal” (J. Alden Weir: An American Impressionist, New York, 1983, p. 194). The Grey Trellis represents the evolution of Weir’s personal synthesis of Impressionism and Japanese influences, two of the most significant artistic developments of the latter half of the nineteenth century.