Artist:
N.C. Wyeth
(American, 1882 - 1945)
The Courtship of Miles Standish, endpaper illustration
Date: 1920
Dimensions:
dimensions unavailable
Location unknown
Copyright, 1920, Houghton Mifflin Company
Accession number: SUPP2000.1126
Research Number: NCW: 1126
Exhibition HistoryPhiladelphia, PA, 1921
References
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.797, p. 398
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.
About this painting, Wyeth wrote to Roger L. Scaife of Houghton Mifflin Company, "I think this drawing is the most successful cover lining I have yet done. It is not over-weighted with pictorial interest and yet it carries a rich, dramatic idea" (NCW to Roger L. Scaife, Feb. 2, 1920, bMS Am 1925 (1962), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University). Although Wyeth hoped to ship this painting to Boston in early February (NCW to RLS, Feb. 2, 1920), it most likely didn't leave the studio until the end of the month (NCW to Henriette Zirngiebel Wyeth, "The Brooklyn Exhibition has brought me...," dated in another hand Feb. 26, 1920, Wyeth Family Archives).
"..."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).
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."
About this painting, Wyeth wrote to Roger L. Scaife of Houghton Mifflin Company, "I think this drawing is the most successful cover lining I have yet done. It is not over-weighted with pictorial interest and yet it carries a rich, dramatic idea" (NCW to Roger L. Scaife, Feb. 2, 1920, bMS Am 1925 (1962), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University). Although Wyeth hoped to ship this painting to Boston in early February (NCW to RLS, Feb. 2, 1920), it most likely didn't leave the studio until the end of the month (NCW to Henriette Zirngiebel Wyeth, "The Brooklyn Exhibition has brought me...," dated in another hand Feb. 26, 1920, Wyeth Family Archives).
"..."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).
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."
Image Source for printed Catalogue Raisonne:digital scan of printed image (Brandywine River Museum Library, tear sheet)
Photo Credit:web: BRM staff; hardcover: Rick Echelmeyer