Lot Details
Lot 2407
Edward Lamson Henry 1841-1919 Mr. and Mrs. Brett in a Surrey, 1889
American, 1841-1919
Mr. and Mrs. Brett in a Surrey, 1889
Signed E.L. Henry and dated 1889 (ll)
Oil on paper laid down on canvas
30 x 40 inches
Provenance:
Sale, Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, sale no. 929, 1948, lot 243
Born in Charleston, Edward Lamson Henry was orphaned at seven and grew up with cousins in New York. He studied art there and in Philadelphia before traveling to Paris to study with Charles Gleyre and Gustave Courbet from 1860 to 1862. Returning home during the Civil War, he served as a clerk on a Union transport ship, from which he sketched the men and activities of the Union camps along the rivers of Virginia.
After the war Henry began to paint meticulously researched images of American rural life, tapping into a general feeling of nostalgia for the peace and simplicity of ante-bellum life. His touching and charming paintings helped shape a collective memory of a treasured past for the many Americans who were uneasy about the changes in their society during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. After his death in 1919, the artist Will Hickok Low wrote an appreciation of his work for the New York Evening Post, praising his preservation "for the future [of] the quaint and provincial aspects of a life which has all but disappeared."
The present painting combines Henry's exhaustive knowledge of the artifacts and manners of rural America with a double portrait. Presented in a genre-like setting with every detail carefully described, Mr. and Mrs. Brett seem to personify a classic American rural couple from a vanishing time.
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