Lot 231 email save

American School Landscape, mid 19th c.,

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American School Landscape, mid 19th c.,
oil on canvas, unsigned, housed in a silver gilt frame. Large, American landscape painting, mid-19th century, of southern origin, and with an early Raleigh provenance, depicting a frontiersman, his back toward the viewer, surveying a vast imaginary panorama of river valleys and mountains, with the sun setting in the far distance. The image incorporates palm trees and Spanish moss, which grows no farther north than the lower shore of the Chesapeake Bay near the North Carolina-Virginia border, as well as the ruins of an arched stone bridge and a Gothic tower. The painting is unsigned, but the stretcher is inscribed in pencil "C. P. Wharton, Raleigh N.C." This almost certainly refers to Cyrus P. Wharton, a well-known North Carolina photographer (1854-1929), who moved to Raleigh, from Greensboro, in 1887 and maintained a studio at 119 Fayetteville Street from 1887 until 1910. Wharton was listed in city directories after 1913 as vice-president of the Raleigh Telephone Company. Although there were many instances in 19th century America of painters who were also photographers (Erastus Salisbury Field, for example) it is unlikely that Cyrus Wharton was the creator of this painting, but rather its owner, since it would appear, for both technical and stylistic reasons, to date to about the decade of his birth. The concept of placing the figure with his back toward the viewer is striking and unusual and possibly reflects the artist's familiarity with the work of the great German Romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840), who utilized this motif in many of his most important works, and who also was fond of incorporating ruined stone buildings in his work. A number of German artists came to America in the late 1840s, fleeing reprisals for participation in the failed revolutions of the year 1848, among them Edward Beyer (1820-1865), creator of the famous "Album of Virginia" set of lithographs. It is possible that the painter of this landscape was one of these artists. SS 40" x 53.5"; DOA 47.5" x 61.5" Purchased by the current owner from the Estate of Norma Mitchell of Littleton, NC in 1986.
Estimate $6000 - 9000

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