Artist:
N.C. Wyeth
(American, 1882 - 1945)
untitled (illustration for Back to the Farm)
Alternate Title(s):Dobbin; Dobbin (Plowing the Cornfield)
Medium: Oil on canvas on hardboard
Date: 1907
Dimensions:
37 3/4 × 26 7/8 in. (95.9 × 68.3 cm)
Private collection, Kennett Square, PA
Accession number: SUPP2000.40
Research Number: NCW: 40
InscribedLower right: TO MY CHADDS FORD / FRIEND.- / TINKER QUIMBY / N.C. WYETH / 1907
ProvenanceThe artist; J. Horace Quimby; Mrs. Lottie B. Eachus; Mrs. Sidney Ashcraft
Exhibition HistoryHarrisburg, PA, 1965, no. 53, as "Dobbin"; Rockland, ME, 1966, no. 6; Chadds Ford, PA, 1968, no. 5; Chadds Ford, PA, 1972, no. 42; Chadds Ford, PA, 1992; Chadds Ford, PA, 1997, no numbers; Chadds Ford, PA, 2002(2)
References
Betsy James Wyeth, ed., The Wyeths, The Letters of N. C. Wyeth, 1901-1945 (Boston: Gambit, 1971), p. 218; Douglas Allen and Douglas Allen, Jr., N. C. Wyeth, The Collected Paintings, Illustrations and Murals (New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1972), p. 274, illus. in color on p. 67 as "Dobbin (Plowing the Cornfield)"; John Edward Dell, Visions of Adventure, N. C. Wyeth and the Brandywine Artists (New York: Watson-Guptill Publications, 2000), illus. in color p. 104; Christine B. Podmaniczky, N. C. Wyeth, A Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings (London: Scala, 2008), I.205, p. 171
Curatorial RemarksOn Sept. 12, 1907, the artist wrote to his mother, "I have started the fourth and last picture, cultivating young corn with a little chap riding on a horse tightly gripping the brass knobs of the harness, his dad trailing the cultivator with the rope lines around his neck--an old white horse...patiently plodding up the side of a hill..." (B. J. Wyeth, ed., p. 218). During the reproduction process, the quality of the proofs, shown to the artist in June 1908, elicited this response, "I have never been bit so hard with poor reproductions before and feel that last summer's work is for naught at all."
The artist gave this painting to Horace "Tink" Quimby, a friend who operated a garage and wheelwright shop in Chadds Ford (Karen Smith Furst, Images of America, Around Chadds Ford (Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2005), p. 37).
The artist gave this painting to Horace "Tink" Quimby, a friend who operated a garage and wheelwright shop in Chadds Ford (Karen Smith Furst, Images of America, Around Chadds Ford (Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2005), p. 37).
Image Source for printed Catalogue Raisonne:Transparency directly from painting
Photo Credit:Rick Echelmeyer, 6/2002