$9,480
William Louis Sonntag (American, 1822-1900) The Falls at Sunset Signed "W L Sonntag" l. r. Oil on canvas, 9 7/8 x 12 1/8 in. (25.0 x 30.7 cm), in a period frame. Condition: Lined, minor retouch, stable craquelure. N.B. This small landscape by William Louis Sonntag likely dates from later in his career. In her monograph on Sonntag, Nancy Dustin Wall Moure described a change in Sonntag's style around 1870, in which the artist moved away from the broad vistas and large canvases of his "classic" style of the 1860s toward more intimate scenes and smaller size canvases with more poetic handling. The change may have been influenced in part by the Barbizon painters, whose works had been introduced to America by William Morris Hunt in the 1860s and had found favor with collectors. Sonntag's color palette also changed during this period, assuming a more limited range that coincided with his interest in portraying the atmospheric effects of sunrises, sunsets, moonlight, and misty weather. During and after the Civil War, Sonntag no longer painted his former haunts of Virginia and Kentucky, but turned to New Hampshire and the White Mountains for inspiration, spending summers in the area of Shelburne on the Androscoggin River. (1) Interestingly, the back of the frame of this painting is inscribed "Shelburn [sic], N.H." 1. Nancy Dustin Wall Moure, William Louis Sonntag, Artist of the Ideal 1822-1900 (Los Angeles: Goldfield Galleries, 1980).pp. 52-56. Inscribed "Shelburn, Read more…
Auctioneer:
Skinner
Date:
2011-01-28
