Artist:
N.C. Wyeth
(American, 1882 - 1945)
Mr. Alcott in the Granary Burying Ground in Boston
Medium: Oil on hardboard (Renaissance Panel)
Date: 1936
Dimensions:
panel: 43 1/8 x 32 in. (109.5 x 81.2 cm)
The Boston Athenaeum
Accession number: SUPP2000.1339
Research Number: NCW: 1339
InscribedLower right: N. C. WYETH; on reverse, Renaissance Panel label, no. 443, dated 5.18.36
ProvenanceThe artist; Mrs. N. C. Wyeth, to ca. 1952
Exhibition HistoryUtica, NY, 1938, as "Bronson Alcott"; Needham, MA, 1982, no numbers; Concord, MA, Concord Museum, N. C. Wyeth's Men of Concord, April 15 - September 18, 2016, ps.42, 43;
References
Richard Layton, "Inventory of Paintings in the Wyeth Studio, 1950," unpublished, Wyeth Family Archives, p. 25; Douglas Allen and Douglas Allen, Jr., N. C. Wyeth, The Collected Paintings, Illustrations and Murals (New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1972), p. 220; Christine B. Podmaniczky, N. C. Wyeth, A Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings (London: Scala, 2008), I.1211, p. 550; David Dearinger, "Looking for (at) Mr. Alcott (Alcock)," http://www.bostonathenaeum.org/about/publications/february-2014-volume-8-issue-2
Curatorial RemarksWyeth's source for this image is taken from an excerpt from Thoreau's journal of August 11, 1852, in which Thoreau describes Bronson Alcott studying the grave of ancestor Dr. John Alcock in Boston's Granary Burying Ground. While Alcock's grave no longer exists, Wyeth used for his foreground stone the actual maker of Ruth Carter. Carter's grave was photographed by John Shaw Chandler and published in Curious Old Gravestones in and around Boston (1924), plate number 23. There are two copies of this portfolio in Wyeth's studio (NCWS.95.711.1 and NCWS.95.711.2); plate 23 of NCWS.95.711.2 is the only plate of the set with two tack holes at the top of the sheeet, suggesting that at one point the plate had been hung for study.
The Andrew and Betsy Wyeth collection includes a charcoal composition drawing for this image (NCW 1867) and the Brandywine Museum of Art holds a lantern slide (NCWS.95.1825.101) that was used in the transfer of the image from paper to panel.
The Andrew and Betsy Wyeth collection includes a charcoal composition drawing for this image (NCW 1867) and the Brandywine Museum of Art holds a lantern slide (NCWS.95.1825.101) that was used in the transfer of the image from paper to panel.
Image Source for printed Catalogue Raisonne:Photography directly from artwork
Photo Credit:Courtesy of the Boston Athenaeum