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

Catalogue Entry

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Keywords
OP.405
Landscape, Tuscany
Alternate title: Landscape
ca. 1880–81
Oil on canvas
16 5/8 x 25 3/4 in. (42.2 x 65.4 cm)
Signed lower left (in red paint): JHT
Private collection
Image: Roz Akin
Provenance
William Rutherford Mead, New York;
bequest to Mead Art Museum, Amherst College, Massachusetts, 1936;
to (Berry-Hill Galleries, New York, 1973);
Robert P. Coggins, by 1977;
(Berry-Hill Galleries, New York);
to David Purvis, 1979;
to (Collisart, LLC, New York);
to present collection, 2022).
Exhibitions
1976 Memorial Art Gallery
Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester, New York, Selections from the Robert P. Coggins Collection of American Paintings, February 25–April 10, 1977, p. 83 ill. in b/w, as Landscape. Traveled to: Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, May 4–June 12, 1977; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, December 3, 1977–January 16, 1978.
2006 Spanierman
Spanierman Gallery, New York, John Twachtman (1853–1902): A "Painter's Painter," May 4–June 24, 2006. (Nelson 2006); (Parkes 2006); (Peters 2006–I); (Peters 2006–II); (Peters 2006–III); (Peters 2006–IV), no. 9, pp. 45, 96-97 ill. in color, as Landscape, Tuscany. Traveled to: Historical Society of the Town of Greenwich, Connecticut, July 13–October 29, 2006.
Literature
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. 557 (catalogue A, no. 331), as Landscape. (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. 134; vol. 2, p. 652 ill. in b/w (fig. 104), as Landscape.
Peters 2006–II
Peters, Lisa N. "Twachtman's Realist Art and the Aesthetic Liberation of Modern Life." In John Twachtman (1853–1902): A "Painter's Painter", by Lisa N. Peters. New York: Spanierman Gallery, 2006. Exhibition catalogue (2006 Spanierman), pp. 45, 96–97 ill. in color, as Landscape, Tuscany.
Commentary

In this scene, a figure in a red cap on the lower right draws the viewer along the path that curves over the gradual elevation rise in the hills. The path guides the viewer's eye to the low-lying homes wth red roofs that line the hillcrest. Twachtman rendered the work in 1880–81 when he was serving as a teacher at the school formed by Frank Duveneck in Florence. During this time, Twachtman seems to have often escaped the city to enjoy the verdant terrain that was within reach, in the Valley of the Mugnone and near Fiesole. Here he expressed his pleasure in travels by foot through this human-scaled countryside. The heavy, moving clouds seem to be clearing, allowing light to clarify the curvature of the path that enhances rather than interferes with the landscape's natural cultivated beauty. 

This painting's first-known owner was the architect William Rutherford Mead (1846–1928), who joined the firm of McKim, Mead, &  White in 1879, a time when his associate, Stanford White, was a fellow member with Twachtman of the Tile Club. This painting would have been an appropriate choice for Mead due to his study of architecture in Florence in 1871–72. The painting was part of Mead's bequest to the Mead Art Museum at his alma mater, Amherst College, which deaccessioned it in 1936.