Lot 86229: FREDERIC CROWNINSHIELD (American, 1845-1918) Mount Vesu

FREDERIC CROWNINSHIELD (American, 1845-1918) Mount Vesuvius, 1916 Oil on canvas 25 x 35 inches (63.5 x 88.9 cm) Signed and dated lower right: F. Crowninshield / 1916 PROVENANCE: Purchased by the father of the current owner from Gallery Mayo, Richmond, Virginia. Crowningshield was born in Boston on November 27, 1845 into what he called a "poor but good" branch of the well-heeled Boston Brahmin Crowninshield family. He graduated from Harvard College in 1866, and studied abroad 11 years; in London, with Thomas Couture in Italy, and with Alexandre Cabanel in Paris. From 1879 to 1885 he taught at the Museum of Fine Arts School of Drawing and Painting when it was housed in the basement of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in Copley Square. Crowninshield then moved to New York, where he served as the first president of the National Society of Mural Painters from 1895 to 1899, and president of the Fine Arts Federation from 1900 to 1909. In 1911 he was appointed director of the American Academy in Rome. This is an ambitious late work by the artist which has been in private hands for the past sixty years.