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JOHN LA FARGE
The Sphinx
.
Gouache, watercolor and black chalk on paper, 1864-65. 120x180 mm; 4½x7 inches.
Initialed and dated in black ink, lower right recto. Signed, titled and annotated extensively
in black ink, verso.
One of a number of works that La Farge made to illustrate RalphWaldo Emerson’s poem,
The Sphinx
(this image was never published).
With Doll and Richards, Boston, 1902-03; with Macbeth Gallery, New York, 1909; ex-
collection the estate of the artist, NewYork, 1911; sold American Art Association, NewYork,
March 29-31, 1911, lot 602; F. Burrall Hoffman Jr, NewYork and Hobe Sound, until 1980.
Exhibited “Private Sale of Water Color Paintings by Mr. John La Farge, Mr. Childe Hassam,
Miss Lucy S. Conant,” Doll and Richards, Boston, November, 1902, no. 3; and “Exhibition
Records of the Century Association,” NewYork, December 4, 1909 (not numbered).
Published in
Watercolors by La Farge, Hassam and Lucy Conant
, Boston Evening Transcript,
November 25, 1902, page 11; and
A Boston Exhibition by Three Artists
, Boston Herald,
November 26, 1902, page 9.
According to Dr. James L.Yarnall,“This is one of La Farge’s most experimental watercolors
of the 1860s. Mixing chalk, watercolor and gouache, he developed the kind of heavy-laden,
expressive and painterly surface effects that came to characterize his watercolors after 1880.”
[7,000/10,000]
