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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.722
L'Etang
ca. 1884
Oil on canvas
19 1/2 x 24 in. (49.5 x 61 cm)
Signed lower left: J. H. Twachtman
Location unknown
Image: Roz Akin
Provenance
Walter Rowlands;
Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, 1908, purchased for the museum through the Jesse Metcalf Fund;
(Parke-Bernet, New York, January 31, 1946, lot 31);
Frederick E. Church, New York, by 1957;
to (Spanierman, 1968);
to (Sotheby, Parke, Bernet, Inc., New York, April 20, 1979, lot 41);
to Erving and Joyce Wolf, New York, 1979;
to (Sotheby's New York, December 3, 2008, lot 87);
to (Spanierman, 2008);
to (Doyle, New York, November 13, 2012, lot 401).
Exhibitions
1968 Spanierman
Ira Spanierman, New York, John Henry Twachtman, 1853–1902: An Exhibition of Paintings and Pastels, February 3–24, 1968, no. 9, as L'Etang.
1976 Museum of Fine Arts (Saint Petersburg)
Museum of Fine Arts, Saint Petersburg, Florida, The New Vision: American Styles of 1876–1910, January 13–February 15, 1976, ill. in b/w, as L'Etang.
1999 High Museum of Art
High Museum of Art, Atlanta, John Henry Twachtman: An American Impressionist, February 26–May 21, 2000. (Peters 1999–I), no. 10, as L'Etang. Traveled to: Cincinnati Art Museum, June 6–September 5, 1999; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, October 16, 1999–January 2, 2000.
Literature
Rhode Island School of Design 1908
Year-Book of the Rhode Island School of Design. Providence: Rhode Island School of Design, 1908, p. 55, as L'Etang.
Clark 1924
Clark, Eliot. John Twachtman. New York: privately printed, 1924, p. 40, as L'Etang.
Parke-Bernet 1946–I
XIX-Century Genre and Landscape Paintings, Auction catalogue, January 31, 1946. New York: Parke-Bernet, 1946, lot 31, as L'Etang.
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. 547 (catalogue A, no. 154), as L'Etang. (Hale concordance).
Sotheby Parke Bernet 1970
American Paintings, Drawings, Watercolors, and Sculpture. Auction catalogue, January 28–29, 1970. New York: Sotheby Parke Bernet, 1970, lot 249 ill. in b/w, as L'Etang.
Sotheby Parke Bernet 1979–I
American 19th- and 20th-Century Paintings, Drawings, Watercolors, and Sculpture. Auction catalogue, April 20, 1979. New York: Sotheby Parke Bernet, 1979, lot 41 ill. in b/w, as L'Etang.
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. 201; vol. 2, p. 712 ill. in b/w (fig. 177), as L'Etang.
Peters 1999–I
Peters, Lisa N. John Henry Twachtman: An American Impressionist. Atlanta: High Museum of Art, 1999. Exhibition catalogue (1999 High Museum of Art), pp. 65, 67 ill. in color 68, as L'Etang.
Sotheby's New York 2008–IV
American Paintings, Drawings, and Sculpture. Auction catalogue, December 3, 2008. New York: Sotheby's, 2008, lot 87 ill. in color, as L'Etang.
Doyle 2012
European, American, Modern, and Contemporary Art. Auction catalogue, November 13, 2012. New York: Doyle, 2012, lot 401 ill. in color, as L'Etang.
Commentary

This painting has been known as L'Etang (French for "the Pond") since 1908, when it was purchased by the Jesse Metcalf Fund for the Rhode Island School of Design. Previously it was owned by the writer Walter Rowlands (b. 1855).

In the painting, the water is shallow and the ground has resurfaced at many points. It is thus possible that the scene features a marsh rather than a pond. If so, it may be the work Twachtman exhibited at his solo exhibition at J. Eastman Chase's Gallery in January 1886 with the title of Marshes near Dieppe (no. 11.).  Dieppe, on the coast of Normandy, was a short distance from Arques-la-Bataille, where Twachtman spent the summer in 1884, and the work relates stylistically to his paintings from that summer. No reviews of the exhibition at Chase's Gallery mentioned Marshes near Dieppe, but comments by critics are suggestive of it. One stated in the Boston Evening Transcript that in the works on view "French influence was paramount," revealing "pure and true color, omnipresent atmosphere and luminosity."[1]

[1] Boston Evening Transcript 1886. 

Selected Literature

From Clark 1924

The river, reflecting a gray clouded sky, in which the attention is centered in a picturesque row of poplar trees on the opposite shore paralleling the picture plane, again [as in Canal Scene, OP.706] figures conspicuously in “L'Etang.”

From Parke-Bernet 1946–I

L'Etang. A wide lake, with smooth water reflecting cloud forms of the pale gray sky. On the shore are groups of trees with a row of poplars at the right and scattered houses.