Artist:
N.C. Wyeth
(American, 1882 - 1945)
The Sea Serpent
Medium: Oil on hardboard (Renaissance Panel)
Date: 1937
Dimensions:
33 × 23 in. (83.8 × 58.4 cm)
Private collection
Accession number: SUPP2000.781
Research Number: NCW: 781
InscribedUpper right: N. C. WYETH (underlined); On reverse of panel: DO NOT VARNISH OR / VASELINE THIS PANEL / N. C. W ./ The Sea Serpent; adhered to reverse of panel, Renaissance Panel label, no. 590, dated 9/24/37; handwritten on Renaissance Panel label: The explorations of Capt. George Weymouth into the rivers of the state of Maine 1602
ProvenanceThe artist; Mrs. N. C. Wyeth (with Knoedler Galleries, New York, NY, # 54848), to 1971; Depositors Corporation, Augusta, ME, 1971 - ; (Judy & Alan Goffman Fine Art, New York, NY, by 1981, to 1984); Collection of Robert and Carolyn Wohlsen, 1984 - 1999; (Schoonover Studios, Ltd., Wilmington, DE, 1999); (Private collection, Wilmington, DE, 1999-2002); (Barridoff Galleries, Portland, ME, July 31, 2002, lot no. 228)
Exhibition HistoryPortland, ME, 1938; Wilmington, DE, 1946, no. 48; Washington, DC, 1946, no. 24; New York, NY, 1957, no. 101; Richmond, VA, 1958; Lubbock, TX, 1959, no. 32; Rockland, ME, 1966, no. 69; Lewiston, ME, 1973; Rockland, ME, 1982, p. 9; Japan (3 venues), American Illustrators Gallery, "The Great American Illustrators," 1993, illus. in color p. 44, no. 23 p. 126; Lititz, PA, 1995
References
"The Romance That Is Maine's," The Boston Herald, June 19, 1938, Rotogravure Section, unpaginated; Robert P. T. Coffin, "Trending Into Maine," New York Herald Tribune Books, June 19, 1938, illus. b/w p. IX-5; Richard Layton, "Inventory of Paintings in the Wyeth Studio, 1950," unpublished, Wyeth Family Archives, p. 15; Members' Bulletin, The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, vol. 19, no. 3 (Nov. 1958), illus. b/w p. 1; Depositors Starts Art Collection with N. C. Wyeth Paintings," in News and Views from Depositors Trust Company (Augusta, ME, Oct. 1971), ps. 2-3, illus. p. 2; Douglas Allen and Douglas Allen, Jr., N. C. Wyeth, The Collected Paintings, Illustrations and Murals (New York: Crown Publishers, 1972), p. 216; Christine B. Podmaniczky, N. C. Wyeth, A Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings (London: Scala, 2008), I.1226, p. 557
Curatorial RemarksThe Brandywine River Museum holds a lantern slide of the composition drawing (NCWS.95.1825.135), used in the transfer of the design from paper to panel.
Image Source for printed Catalogue Raisonne:Transparency directly from painting
Photo Credit:Rick Echelmeyer, 12/1999