Artist:
N.C. Wyeth
(American, 1882 - 1945)
Eseldorf was a paradise for us boys
Alternate Title(s):Three Boys
Medium: Oil on canvas
Date: 1916
Dimensions:
40 × 33 1/8 in. (101.6 × 84.1 cm)
Brandywine River Museum of Art, Purchased through the bequest of Mrs. Russell G. Colt, 1988
Accession number: 88.19
Research Number: NCW: 181
InscribedUpper left, scratched into paint: N. C. WYETH; reverse, top stretcher, (Knoedler's) label: NO. 54850 / PICTURE
ProvenanceThe artist; Mrs. N. C. Wyeth; Mr. and Mrs. Peter Hurd, San Patricio, NM; (La Rinconada Gallery, San Patricio, NM, 1988)
Exhibition HistoryWilmington, DE, 1946, no. 41, as "Three Boys"; New York, NY, 1957, no. 74; Lubbock, TX, 1959, no. 19; Chadds Ford, PA, 1972, no. 79; Roswell, NM, 1981, no numbers; Harrisburg, PA, Governor's Residence, "The Wyeths in Pennsylvania: Three Generations," April 3 - July 31, 2000; Akron, OH, Akron Museum of Art, June 15 - Sept. 1, 2002, and Lawrence, KS, Spencer Museum of Art, Sept. 21 - Nov. 17, 2002, "N. C. Wyeth from the Brandywine River Museum Collection"; Helsinki, Finland, United States Embassy, "Art in Embassies Exhibition," 2006/2008, illus. in color, p. 16; Rockland, Maine, Farnsworth Art Museum, "Every Picture Tells a Story," April 27-Dec. 30, 2013;
References
Chatterbox For 1929 (London: Wells Gardner, Darton & Co., 1929), cover label in color; Richard Layton, "Inventory of Paintings in the Wyeth Studio, 1950," unpublished, Wyeth Family Archives, p. 29; Betsy James Wyeth, ed., The Wyeths, The Letters of N. C. Wyeth, 1901-1945 (Boston: Gambit, 1971), p. 520; Douglas Allen and Douglas Allen, Jr., N. C. Wyeth, The Collected Paintings, Illustrations and Murals (New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1972), illustration in color, p. 94; Susan E. Meyer, "N. C. Wyeth," American Artist Magazine, vol. 39, no. 391 (Feb. 1975), illus. in color p. 42; Brandywine River Museum, Catalogue of the Collection, 1969-1989 (Chadds Ford, PA: Brandywine Conservancy, 1991), p. 206; Christine B. Podmaniczky, N. C. Wyeth, A Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings (London: Scala, 2008), I.635, p. 332
Curatorial RemarksAbout this picture Wyeth wrote to his mother on Feb. 17, 1916, (for) "much of the spirit of the scene I have built upon the spirit of, and memories of, my boyhood in the Holzer family. One of old Uncle's homemade blow-guns...plays a prominent part and I feel sure that you will feel the romance of castles and mountains as related in German legends and fairy stories, particularly as Bertha used to tell them" (Betsy James Wyeth, ed., p. 520).
Image Source for printed Catalogue Raisonne:Transparency directly from painting
Photo Credit:web: BRM photo files; hardcover, Rick Echelmeyer, 5/2006