John Henry Twachtman Catalogue Raisonné
An online catalogue by Lisa N. Peters, Ph.D., in collaboration with the Greenwich Historical Society
Print this page
« previous // return to Works // next »

Catalogue Entry

enlarge
Additional Images
The River, Holland, ca. 1881 (OP.613). Verso: OP.613, The River, Holland.
Verso: OP.613, The River, Holland.
Keywords
OP.613
The River, Holland
ca. 1881
Oil on canvas
8 13/16 x 12 1/2 in. (22.4 x 31.8 cm)
Signed lower right: J. H. Twachtman [signature incised in the surface]
The Mark Twain House & Museum, Hartford, Connecticut, Gift of Reverend John Curry Gay (2000.13.1)
Exhibitions
1919 Macbeth
Macbeth Gallery, New York, Paintings by John H. Twachtman, January 1919, no. 16, as The River, Holland.
Literature
Britton 1919
Britton, James. "Exhibition Now On: Twachtmans at Macbeth's." American Art News 17 (January 11, 1919), p. 2, as The River, Holland.
Hale 1957
Hale, John Douglass. "Life and Creative Development of John H. Twachtman." 2 vols. Ph.D. dissertation, Ohio State University, 1957. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms, 1958, vol. 1, pp. 189–90, 192 ill. in b/w (fig. 22); vol. 2, p. 553–54 (catalogue A, no. 276), as The River, Holland. (Hale concordance).
Peters 1995
Peters, Lisa N. "John Twachtman (1853–1902) and the American Scene in the Late Nineteenth Century: The Frontier within the Terrain of the Familiar." 2 vols. Ph.D. dissertation, City University of New York, 1995. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms International, 1996, vol. 1, p. 144; vol. 2, p. 657 ill. in b/w (fig. 111), as The River, Holland.
Commentary

In this image of a Dutch river, Twachtman expressed the scene's quietude in a symmetrical composition in which the sky and water mirror each other, while the empty rowboat in the foreground directs the viewer's gaze to a fishing vessel at the vanishing point. As in other paintings from this time, the empty boat implies the artist's presence in the scene, as both within it and as its creator, seeing it from a detached standpoint. 

This painting was purchased from Macbeth in 1918 by Scottish-born George A. Gay (1853–1940), who rose in the ranks of a Hartford, Connecticut, department store to be its senior partner. An avid art collector, Gay was curator of prints, etchings, and drawings at the Wadsworth Atheneum in 1921–22. The painting was given by Gay to his nephew Alexander A. Gay. It was put on loan at The Mark Twain House & Museum by Reverend John Curry Gay, a descendant, in 1977, and became part of the collection in 2000.