Estimate: $12,000 - $18,000
American Art & Pennsylvania Impressionists
Auction: December 8, 2019 2:00:00 PM EDT
Signed 'E. Lawson' bottom left, oil on canvas
18 x 21 1/2 in. (45.7 x 54.6cm)
Executed in 1916.
Provenance: Daniel Gallery, New York, New York.
Collection of Mr. Albert E. McVitty, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.
Coe Kerr Gallery, New York, New York.
Hirschl & Adler Galleries, Inc., New York, New York.
Adelson Galleries, Inc., New York, New York.
Private Collection, Washington, D.C.
NOTE:
In 1916, Ernest Lawson won a purchase prize of $1,500 from the Corcoran Gallery that allowed him to take his family to Spain. The Lawsons toured the country before settling in Segovia, a medieval town northeast of Madrid. There, the artist painted countless studies and finished oils en plein air, all replete with dazzling hues dictated by the bright light that forced Lawson to lighten his palette. The present work shows the architectural silhouette of Segovia at a distance, which acts as a counterpoint to the rugged landscape in the foreground. The tall spire in the upper right corner might represent the Alcázar, a 12th century fortress built on top of a rock. Upon his return to America, Lawson exhibited twenty-two of his Spanish oils at the Daniel Gallery, where a critic for The New York Times observed: "It is not for their historical quality that they will be treasured (…) It is for the color of place that permeates them (…) These walls and city squares and green slopes eat up the sunshine with avidity (…) [Lawson's] Spain is heavy on the vision, but it is impossible not to believe in it. The pictures are saturated with aesthetic truth."