Artist:
N.C. Wyeth
(American, 1882 - 1945)
untitled (view of the Brandywine)
Alternate Title(s):Brandywine Landscape
Medium: Oil on canvas
Date: ca. 1912 / 1915
Dimensions:
24 15/16 × 30 1/8 × 7/8 in. (63.3 × 76.5 × 2.2 cm)
Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Massachusetts
Bequest of Penelope Rockwell
Accession number: SUPP2000.1281
Research Number: NCW: 1281
InscribedLower right: N. C. WYETH; all four stretcher bars printed with a brown embossed manufacturer’s trademark (palette and calipers), inscribed as follows: ANCO BILT (on the palette) / Glendale, NY / 25 (on the two vertical members to denote the stretcher bar length) / 30 (on the two horizontal members); on brown cardboard backing in black script: From / Associated American Artists / 663 Fifth Avenue / New York, N.Y. 10022
ProvenanceThe artist; Mrs. N. C. Wyeth; Carolyn Wyeth; sold by Nicholas Wyeth to Louise D. Van Gelder, Madison, CT, 1972, and descended in family; Mr. Sherburne and Mrs. Penelope Rockwell; Bequest to Worcester Art Museum by Penelope Rockwell, 2006
References
Christine B. Podmaniczky, N. C. Wyeth, Catalogue Raisonne of Paintings (London: Scala, 2008), L.67, p. 720
Curatorial RemarksThis painting was part of a group of canvases, all unstretched, that was documented in 1969 for the Wyeth family. A photograph taken at the time shows the painting without a signature, and it is likely that Carolyn Wyeth or Andrew Wyeth added their father's name. The Brandywine River Museum holds a receipt written by Carolyn Wyeth (1972 Ledger, BRM library) that documents the sale to the first owner.
Underneath this image is another landscape, probably a view of the barn on the Wyeth property. Wyeth turned the canvas upside down to reuse it. NCW 2246.399 is an oil sketch of the same view. The Wyeth Family Archives includes a photograph of a similar oil painting, probably hanging in the mill that the Pyle summer school students used, and that NCW used in the summer of 1907. That painting is unidentified and unattributed but unquestionably of the same view.
Underneath this image is another landscape, probably a view of the barn on the Wyeth property. Wyeth turned the canvas upside down to reuse it. NCW 2246.399 is an oil sketch of the same view. The Wyeth Family Archives includes a photograph of a similar oil painting, probably hanging in the mill that the Pyle summer school students used, and that NCW used in the summer of 1907. That painting is unidentified and unattributed but unquestionably of the same view.
Image Source for printed Catalogue Raisonne:1. Digital photography directly from painting; 2. x-radiograph of the canvas, showing the image underneath
Photo Credit:1. Worcester Art Museum; 2. Courtesy of the Worcester Art Museum conservation lab