Artist:
N.C. Wyeth
(American, 1882 - 1945)
Sitter:
Henriette Zeller Zirngiebel
Portrait of Henriette Zeller Zirngiebel
Medium: Oil on heavy cardboard
Date: 1906
Dimensions:
4 3/4 × 3 11/16 in. (12.1 × 9.4 cm)
Brandywine Museum of Art, Bequest of Carolyn Wyeth, 1996
Accession number: 96.1.56
Research Number: NCW: 2098
InscribedLower right: NCW (underlined) / 06
ProvenanceThe artist to his mother, Christmas 1906; descended in Wyeth family; Carolyn Wyeth
References
Christine B. Podmaniczky, N. C. Wyeth, Catalogue Raisonne of Paintings (London: Scala, 2008), P.4, p. 800
Curatorial RemarksIn 1906, N. C. Wyeth painted this portrait of his maternal grandmother (who had died in 1903) from a photograph. It and a companion portrait of his maternal grandfather (NCW 2097) were sent to his mother for Christmas the same year (NCW to "Dear Everybody," and dated in another hand Dec. 17, 1906, Wyeth Family Archives). The artist's Christmas letter to his parents reveals that this portrait was not complete, and he begged the opportunity to finish it "later." The pair of portraits was returned to Chadds Ford sometime after his mother's death in 1925 and for decades sat on the mantle piece in the living room of the Wyeth home. It is readily recognizable in Andrew Wyeth's "Before Six," a view of the living room (reproduced in Martha Severens, "Andrew Wyeth, America's Painter, New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1996, no. 6).
Image Source for printed Catalogue Raisonne:transparency directly from painting
Photo Credit:Rick Echelmeyer, 1/2005