Artist:
N.C. Wyeth
(American, 1882 - 1945)
Headlong he leaped on the Boaster, and, snatching his knife from its scabbard . . .
Alternate Title(s):Miles Standish; How Miles Standish Fought the Indians
Medium: Oil on canvas
Date: 1920
Dimensions:
40 1/2 × 30 in. (102.9 × 76.2 cm)
Private collection
Accession number: SUPP2000.1124
Research Number: NCW: 1124
InscribedLower right: N. C. WYETH (underlined); inscribed on stretcher: Miles Standish 5
ProvenanceStandish Lounge, Hotel Roosevelt , New York, NY, 1926; (?); (Sotheby Parke Bernet, New York, NY, lot no. 50, April 21, 1978); (?); (Sotheby's, NY, lot no. 169, April 23, 1981); Private collection, VA; (Vose Galleries, Boston, MA, 1984); Private collection, ME, 1985-2000; (Barridoff Galleries, Portland, ME, Aug. 2, 2000, lot no. 190); MBNA America, Wilmington, DE, to 2004; (Somerville Manning Gallery, Greenville, DE, 2004)
Exhibition HistoryBoston, MA, 1922
References
Sunday (Boston) Herald, Dec. 24, 1922, illustration in Rotogravure Section; "The Wooing of Priscilla," The Mentor, vol. 14, no. 6 (July 1926), p. 45, as "How Miles Standish Fought the Indians"; Douglas Allen and Douglas Allen, Jr., N. C. Wyeth, The Collected Paintings, Illustrations and Murals (New York: Crown Publishers, 1972), p. 211; Christine B. Podmaniczky, N. C. Wyeth, A Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings (London: Scala, 2008), I.804, p. 400, 401
Curatorial RemarksThe Brandywine River Museum of Art owns the copy of Houghton Mifflin's 1913 edition of The Courtship of Miles Standish, Elizabeth and other Poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (NCWS.95.211) which NCW read and marked as he chose his illustrative program. The copy is illustrated with engravings after an unidentified artist which seem to have furnished Wyeth with some inspiration.
"..."The Heart of the Puritan" compiled by Miss Hanscom of Smith College is a valuable collection of letters and journals which will add greatly to my mental background in working up the Miles Standish pictures." (NCW to "Babe," Jan. 14, 1920, WFA)
In his introduction to the edition, the poet's son (and painter) Ernest W. Longfellow wrote, "Mr. Wyeth's illustrations seem to me--and I doubt not that they would have seemed to my father--admirable all through in their richness of color and their unconventional treatment, coupled with their many evidences of the closest study of the period."
"..."The Heart of the Puritan" compiled by Miss Hanscom of Smith College is a valuable collection of letters and journals which will add greatly to my mental background in working up the Miles Standish pictures." (NCW to "Babe," Jan. 14, 1920, WFA)
In his introduction to the edition, the poet's son (and painter) Ernest W. Longfellow wrote, "Mr. Wyeth's illustrations seem to me--and I doubt not that they would have seemed to my father--admirable all through in their richness of color and their unconventional treatment, coupled with their many evidences of the closest study of the period."
Image Source for printed Catalogue Raisonne:photography directly from artwork