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

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Keywords
WC.400
Landscape near Florence
Alternate title: Italian Landscape
ca. 1880–81
Watercolor on paper
10 3/4 x 12 1/2 in. (27.3 x 31.8 cm)
Signed lower right: J. H. T. [According to Hale the artist’s initials were inscribed by his son J. Alden Twachtman]
Huntington Museum of Art, Huntington, West Virginia, Gift of Ruth Wood Dayton (1967.1.243)
Literature
Tucker 1931
Tucker, Allen. John H. Twachtman. New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1931, pp. 56–57 ill.
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. 583 (catalogue A, no. 617), as Landscape near Florence. (Hale concordance).
Commentary

This watercolor, featuring a basilica or monastery with a low wall extending behind it and continuing across the landscape, was given by Twachtman in 1880–81 to Charles Mills (1856–1956), when both artists joined the school established by Frank Duveneck in the hills above Florence. Throughout the work, Twachtman made use of his medium's translucency, while controlling the flow of his paint to distinguish the sunlight in the weathered building facades, the broken clouds in a bright sky, and the darkened line of distant hills. Despite his specificity in the buildings, the site has yet to be identified.