Artist:
N.C. Wyeth
(American, 1882 - 1945)
Eager, with tearful eyes, to say farewell to the Mayflower, homeward bound o'er the sea, and leaving them here in the desert
Alternate Title(s):Departure of the Mayflower; Homeward Bound O'er the Sea; Pilgrims Waving Goodbye to the Mayflower
Medium: Oil on canvas
Date: 1920
Dimensions:
40 1/2 × 30 in. (102.9 × 76.2 cm)
Location unknown
Copyright, 1920, Houghton Mifflin Company
Accession number: SUPP2000.1131
Research Number: NCW: 1131
InscribedLower right: N. C. WYETH; inscribed on stretcher: Miles Standish 4
ProvenanceStandish Lounge, Hotel Roosevelt, New York, NY, 1926; (?); (Sotheby Parke Bernet Inc., New York, NY, April 21, 1978, lot no. 51, as "Homeward Bound O're the Sea"); (Scottsdale, AZ, Jim Fowler's Period Gallery, as "Pilgrims Waving Goodbye to the Mayflower"); (with Texas Art Gallery, Dallas, TX, 1984); Private collection; Scottsdale, AZ, Scottsdale Art Auction, April 11, 2015, session 2, lot no. 227;
Exhibition HistoryPhiladelphia, PA, 1921, as "Departure of the Mayflower"; Boston, MA, 1921
References
"Wyeth's Illustrations," (Boston, MA) Transcript, Nov. 28, 1921; Thomas H. Briggs, Ways to Better English (Boston: Ginn & Co., 1924), frontispiece illustration; The American Printer, vol. 83, no. 1 (July 1926), illus.; "The Wooing of Priscilla," The Mentor, vol. 14, no. 6 (July 1926), p. 46 as "The Sailing of the Mayflower"; 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.802, p. 400
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)
This composition was repeated in 1941, in a horizontal format as "The Departure of the Mayflower," one of the decorations for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company.;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." He went on to single out this painting, "One has but to look at such a picture as the Sailing Away of the Mayflower, with the Pilgrims gathered on the shore, to feel the sinking of heart of the adventurers as the last link connecting them with the land of their birth faded in the distance."
"..."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)
This composition was repeated in 1941, in a horizontal format as "The Departure of the Mayflower," one of the decorations for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company.;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." He went on to single out this painting, "One has but to look at such a picture as the Sailing Away of the Mayflower, with the Pilgrims gathered on the shore, to feel the sinking of heart of the adventurers as the last link connecting them with the land of their birth faded in the distance."
Image Source for printed Catalogue Raisonne:b/w photography directly from artwork
Photo Credit:Courtesy of Sotheby's, New York, NY