Top-100 artists:
We use our proprietary AI - LiveArt Estimate™ to calculate current market value for each artwork. Based on this data LiveArt is able to provide numerous insights into artist and artwork financial performance, including:
See the measure of artist investment performance relative to risk. A higher ratio suggests better risk-adjusted returns, indicating more consistent performance with less risk.
Explore the most prolific periods in an artist's career based on artwork production volume and current market value. It also segments these periods by category, offering insights into when the most valuable pieces were created in each category.
Free to sign up. No credit card required.
| Image | Sale date | Auction house | Location | Sale name | Lot No. | Estimate | Price Sold | Condition | Title |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
May 2, 2015 | Heritage Auctions | Dallas | American Art Signature Auction | 68072 | $****** - ****** | The Dark |
paintings
154.9 x 96.8 cm (61 x 38.1 in)
mixed media on board
Signed lower left: Jessie Willcox Smith
American Pavilion, International Exhibition of Art, Rome, Italy, 1911; The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and The Philadelphia Water Color Club, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, "Eleventh Annual Exhibition," 1913.
"A Child's World: A Series of Pictures by Jessie Willcox Smith (A Series of Six Drawings in Color)," McClures' Magazine, December 1909, illustrated, n.p.; H. Morris, "America at Rome," Art and Progress, Vol. 2, No. 12, October 1911, p. 367.1911 marked a highpoint in Jessie Willcox Smith's career as America's beloved illustrator of children's books: she won the prestigious Beck Prize from the Philadelphia Water Color Club for A Child's Grace, and she exhibited three watercolors at the International Art Exposition in Rome, The Fairy Pool, Sweet and Low, and the present lot, The Dark. The Dowager Queen of Italy singled out The Dark as one of her favorites, impressed not only by Smith's watercolor technique, but by her winsome subject, a wide-eyed, rosy-cheeked lad reluctant to ascend a dark staircase:"And so it was with the Queen Mother, Margharita. She came alone with a small suite and spent the afternoon rambling through our [American] galleries. When she had examined everything minutely and praised all, with the intelligence of a practiced artist -- for she paints skillfully in water-color -- she sighed for more -- there was not enough. She was attracted by our novelties of technique, our color, and our subjects, . . . and with 'Autumn Glory' by Will Robinson, and 'The Dark' by Jessie Willcox Smith, she expressed special delight" (H. Morris, "America at Rome," Art and Progress, Vol. 2, No. 12 (Oct. 1911) p. 367).The Dark originally appeared in "A Child's World: A Series of Six Drawings in Color" in the December 1909 edition of McClure's Magazine. For this project, Smith examined the psychological realms of the child, whether intellectual (two girls reading in Indoors), imaginative (a girl communing with fairies in The Fairy Pool), curious (a boy stalking a creature in The Mystic Wood), adventurous (a girl standing on top of a globe), peaceful (a girl holding a shell on a sun-drenched beach), or fearful (the boy climbing the stairs in The Dark). Among these, Smith was clearly taken with The Dark, which she also exhibited in 1913 with the Philadelphia Water Color Club. The painting's dramatic black background -- a novel effect for Smith -- both underscores the boy's state of mind and offsets his guarded figure, illuminated by slivers of moonlight streaming through the windowpanes.
