The White Admiral of the Woods, untitled illustration

caption: image as printed in Ladies' Home Journal, vol., XXXVI, no. 8 (Aug. 1919)
Artist:

N.C. Wyeth

(American, 1882 - 1945)

The White Admiral of the Woods, untitled illustration

Alternate Title(s):Man with Butterfly Receives Visitor
Medium: Oil on canvas
Date: 1919
Dimensions:
34 × 36 in. (86.4 × 91.4 cm)
Private collection
Accession number: SUPP2000.1818
Research Number: NCW: 1818
Inscribedlower right: N. C. WYETH; (and incised at an angle to signature, in script: wyeth)
ProvenanceLadies Home Journal editor Orville Davis, 1919, and descended in family; [New York, New York, Illustration House, March 15, 2014, lot no. 14);
References Douglas Allen and Douglas Allen, Jr., N. C. Wyeth, The Collected Paintings, Illustrations and Murals (New York: Crown Publishers, 1972), p. 262; Christine B. Podmaniczky, N. C. Wyeth, A Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings (London: Scala, 2008), I.790, p. 396; Barrymore Laurence Scherer, "America's Golden Age of Illustration," Antiques Magazine, March-April 2014, p. 70, as "Man with Butterfly Receives Visitor";
Curatorial RemarksThis painting has the same feel and palette as the paintings for The Last of the Mohicans, which the artist completed the same year. The White Admiral of the Woods takes place in the Adirondacks, the same locale as the Cooper story.
The artwork on the page includes floral decoration at the top right and lower left corners of the illustration (the lower left also includes the capital letter R decorated with a crow). It is not clear if this incidental decoration is also Wyeth's work, but a printer's proof sent to the artist includes the overall art (proof, Brandywine River Museum of Art Research Center).
Image Source for printed Catalogue Raisonne:Transparency from printed image (Brandywine River Museum Library)
Photo Credit:Rick Echelmeyer, 6/16/2005