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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Keywords
P.800
Abandoned Mill, Branchville, Connecticut
Alternate titles: Abandoned Mill; Mill Scene
ca. 1888
Pastel on paper
15 x 12 in. (38.1 x 30.5 cm)
Signed lower right: J. H. Twachtman–
Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, Gift of the John C. Van Dyke Collection (64.19.3)
Exhibitions
1889–I Fifth Avenue Art Galleries
Fifth Avenue Art Galleries, New York, Paintings in Oil and Pastel by J. Alden Weir and J. H. Twachtman, February 1–7, 1889, no. 12, as Abandoned Mill, 15 x 12 in, illustrated in etching.
Literature
New York Times 1889–I
"The Weir–Twachtman Paintings." New York Times, February 3, 1889, p. 13, as Abandoned Mill.
Sun 1889–II
"Weir and Twachtman Pictures." Sun (New York), February 8, 1889, p. 3, as Abandoned Mill.
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. 532 (catalogue G, no. 996), as Abandoned Mill. (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. 246; vol. 2, p. 772 ill. in b/w (fig. 244), as Mill Scene.
Commentary

This pastel was included as Abandoned Mill in the sale of the work of Twachtman and Julian Alden Weir, held at the Fifth Avenue Art Galleries on February 7,1889. Twachtman illustrated the scene in an etching reproduced in the show’s catalogue (E.800).[1] Although he rendered the etching after the pastel (and it was reversed in the printing process), the two works are different. The etching is more geometric, with distinct areas of light and dark, whereas here Twachtman used pastel with an agile vigor indicating that he had created it on the spot. This aspect of it was alluded to by a critic for the New York Times, who called the work “thoroughly charming” and compared Twachtman's method with that of Weir, noting that Twachtman has a “light touch, which comes with difficulty to Mr. Weir, and is so necessary in this delicate, yet crisp medium."

The pastel's first-known owner was John Charles Van Dyke (1861–1931), an art history professor at Rutgers University and an art critic, whose books included Art for Art's Sake (1893) and Nature for Its Own Sake (1898). Van Dyke knew Twachtman personally, having visited and described his class at the Art Students League for an article in Harper's New Monthly Magazine, published in 1891.[2] He was probably the purchaser of the pastel from the Fifth Avenue Art Galleries sale in February 1889, where it sold for $15. It remained with Van Dyke's descendants, by whose bequest it entered its present collection.

[1] In his 1921 catalogue for Frederick Keppel, R. J. Wickenden titled the etching Old Mill, Bridgeport, but the current title's given location of Branchville is seems more likely given the setting. Wickenden 1921, p. 35.

[2] Van Dyke 1891–I, pp. 691–92.