loading loading
John Henry Twachtman Catalogue Raisonné
An online catalogue by Lisa N. Peters, Ph.D., in collaboration with the Greenwich Historical Society

Catalogue Entry

enlarge
Keywords
OP.740
Landscape
ca. 1885–87
Oil on canvas
17 x 12 in. (43.2 x 30.5 cm)
Signed lower left: J. H. Twachtman
Location unknown
Provenance
Private collection;
to (American Art Association, New York, February 3, 1921, lot 6);
to Ferdinand Howald, New York;
to his niece Flora Howald (Mrs. Robert) Shawan, 1934;
to her son David Shawan, 1971;
to his wife Virginia Bonnet Shawan, 1997;
(Berner's Auction Gallery, June 13, 2010, lot 249).
Literature
American Art Association 1921
Notable Paintings. Auction catalogue, February 3, 1921. New York: American Art Association, 1921, lot 6, as Landscape.
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. 2, p. 466 (catalogue G, no. 342), as Landscape. (Hale concordance).
Commentary

This painting's early provenance is unknown. In 1921 it was described and illustrated in the catalogue for an auction held at the American Art Association in 1921, where it was listed as "Property of a Private Collector." The purchaser was Ferdinand Howald (1856–1934), a prominent US businessman and art collector, who owned works mostly by American and European modernists. Much of Howald's collection was left to the Columbus Art Museum (Ohio) on his death in 1934. However, this painting remained with members of his family until 2005.  The site is unknown, but the style is suggestive of the transitional period in Twachtman's art from 1885 to 1887.  

Selected Literature

From American Art Association 1921

Under gray skies whose clouds are gradually lightening, flat meadow lands appear moist after a shower, the grass yellow-green and relieved by brown bushes that skirt a brook which overspreads the foreground. In the distance hazy bluish woods.