Beschreibung:

Levi Wells Prentice American, 1851-1935 The Adirondacks Signed L. W. Prentice. (lr) Oil on canvas 20 x 16 inches Provenance: Helen McGhee Antiques, Philadelphia, PA, 1979 With its emphatically vertical format and dense composition, as well as a strongly narrative element, this undated work is rather unusual in the oeuvre of Levi Wells Prentice Compositionally, it is similar, though a mirror image to, the larger Moose River, Adirondacks, of 1884 [Private collection, Barbara L. Jones, Nature Staged: The Landscape and Still Life Paintings of Levi Wells Prentice The Adirondack Museum, 1993, illus. pl. 10]. In both paintings, a canoe rests at water's edge in a forested landscape, a treacherous, boulder-strewn stream drawing the eye upward. In the foreground of each stands a birch tree, its peeling bark rendered with meticulous detail. In the present work, however, a hunter leans upon his rifle, gazing out at the scene beyond. Is he seeking his prey but finding none? Or, more pragmatically, is he contemplating the rapids upstream, and wondering how he can manage to navigate his small craft through the treacherous water? With precise verisimilitude, Prentice depicts the interior of the canoe and the hills and forests of his native Adirondacks. Never having formally studied anatomy, however, his rendition of the hunter is imbued with a charming naivete. In 1883, Prentice moved to Brooklyn, where he made frames, taught art, and began painting still life compositions. By 1894, he focused on these, only occasionally depicting an Adirondack vista, likely basing these late scenes upon earlier sketches and paintings. C Property from the Collection of Jerome M. and Rhoda S. Fischer
Frame rubbing. Canvas buckling in the upper left corner. Some touches of inpaint in the sky. Some possible inpaint in the shadows of the rocks along the shoreline at the center right. There is no further restoration visible under UV light. Frame size: 28 ¾ x 24 5/8 inches