Lot 419: GEORGE MANN NIEDECKEN

PROPERTY FROM AN IMPORTANT PRIVATE COLLECTION

TWO LANDSCAPE MURALS FROM THE DINING ROOM OF THE SEDGWICK BRINSMAID HOUSE, DES MOINES, IOWA

measurements note
33 1/2 x 51 1/2 in. (85.1 x 130.8 cm)

ca. 1902

oil on canvas

PROVENANCE

Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York

LITERATURE

Wesley I. Shink, ''The Residence in Des Moines,'' The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, vol. 29, 1970, pp. 56-59 (for a detailed discussion of the Brinsmaid House)
Scott Elliott, Frank Lloyd Wright and Viollet-le-Duc: Organic Architecture and Design from 1850 to 1950, Chicago, 1986, p. 85 (for another landscape mural from this commission)
Sheila Schwartz, ed., From Architecture to Object: Masterworks of the American Arts & Crafts Movement, New York, 1989, p. 97 (for another landscape mural from this commission)
Mary Lackritz Gray, A Guide to Chicago's Murals, Chicago, 2001, pp. 14-15 (for two other landscape murals from this commission)

NOTE

These two works were originally part of a series of decorative murals executed by Niedecken for the dining room of the Sedgwick Brinsmaid House. The murals depict a vast midwestern forest, articulated in muted tones of brown and green. Period photographs show these murals installed above the wainscoting in the dining room. Designed by architect Arthur Heun in 1902, the Brinsmaid residence is one of the earliest Prairie-style houses, pre-dating many of Frank Lloyd Wright's early architectural commissions.

Sotheby's wishes to thank Cheryl Robertson, Curator of American Decorative Arts, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, for providing these research citations on the Brinsmaid House.