Provenance:
Edward Hill, Yonkers, New York, c. 1880
Gertrude Hill, New York, by bequest, c. 1930
Sold: Sotheby Park-Bernet, New York, November 18, 1977, Lot 526
Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York, 1977
John H. Surovek Gallery, Palm Beach Florida, c. 1984
Private Collection
Exhibited:
Palm Beach, Florida, John H. Surovek Fine Arts, Impressionist Masterworks , Winter 1985
New York, Knoedler-Modarco S.A., Winslow Homer in Monochrome , December 12, 1986 - January 10, 1987, no. 35, p. 32, illus.
Literature:
Lloyd Goodrich and Abigail Booth Gerdts, Record of Works by Winslow Homer, 1877 through March 1881, vol. III , New York, 2008, no. 653, p. 98, illus.
Lot note:
The present work, Shepherdess , was executed in 1878 by Winslow Homer to be used as a model for a design element within a fireplace surround (now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). A drawing of a shepherd was also created by Homer and together the two figures, along with their flock, were recreated as a suite of twelve contiguous 8-inch square tiles. The surround was presented to the artist"s older brother, Charles Savage Homer, for his home in West Townsend, Massachusetts. It may have been that the artist hoped to produce a commercially manufactured line based on the design, indicated by the inscribed “No. 1,” along with a copyright claim, on the lowest left tile of the surround.
The drawing and the resulting surround came as a consequence of Homer"s involvement with the Tile Club, a New York artist organization that was active from 1877 to 1887. Members included 31 notable New York painters, sculptors, and architects, including William Merritt Chase, J. Alden Weir, John Henry Twachtman, Elihu Vedder, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and Stanford White. The club formed as an informal, men"s-only order to paint on ceramic tiles and enjoy social camaraderie with like-minded fellows, as well as traveling together on group excursions and sketching trips. In addition to friendship, the club was a response to the growing interest within America to the Aesthetic movement, which called for a marriage of the beautiful and useful in the fine and decorative arts. They also championed American art in general and helped to popularize plein air painting and the Impressionist style.
The subject of the present drawing likewise relates to some of Homer"s most idyllic images of American country life. In 1876, Lawson Valentine, the artist"s friend and first and most important patron, purchased a farm in Mountainville, New York and named it Houghton Farm, after his wife"s family name. Homer spent the summer and fall of 1878 at the homestead, where he made a number of works related to sheep husbandry, an essential part of the working farm. Shepherdess may first have been envisioned on Homer"s 1878 trip to Houghton Farm, resulting in a unique work that stands at the intersection of late 19th century American art and craft.