Lot 88: John La Farge (1835-1910)

John La Farge (1835-1910)
Sleep (Study of Female Figure Asleep)
signed 'Jno La Farge' (lower left)--signed and inscribed 'Study of a woman asleep./Dressed in Japanese Robe/of green crepe & white satin undergown./John La Farge N.A./51 W-10 st' (on a label affixed to the backing board)
watercolor on paper
8 x 6½ in. (20.3 x 16.5 cm.), image; 12¼ x 10¼ in. (31.1 x 26 cm.), sheet
Executed circa 1884-85.

New York, Century Association, Exhibition Records of the Century Association, February 6, 1886, no. 26.
New York, Century Association, Exhibition Records of the Century Association, June 5, 1886.
New York, American Water Color Society, Illustrated Catalogue of the Twentieth Annual Exhibition of the Water Color Society, ?-February 26, 1887, no. 72.

"The La Farge Exhibition," Art Age, vol. 2, March 1885, p. 115 (as Study of Sleeping Woman).
"Two Picture Sales," New York Herald, March 25, 1885, p. 5.
"Many Bidders at a Sale of Paintings," New York Tribune, March 27, 1885, p. 2.
"La Farge's Work at Auction," New York Times, March 27, 1885, p. 8.
"The Water-Color Society," New York Tribune, January 29, 1887, p. 4.
"The Water Colors," New York Times, January 29, 1887, p. 4.
"Among the Water Colors," New York World, January 29, 1887, p. 7.
"The Water-Color Society," Boston Evening Transcript, February 2, 1887, p. 6.

Sale: Moore's Art Gallery, New York, 26-27 March 1885, no. 36.
(Possibly) Hubert von Herkomer, London, 1887.
Private collection.
By descent to the present owner.

According to James L. Yarnall, Ph.D., a wood-engraved illustration of the present work appeared in the 1887 catalogue of the American Water-Color Society, and this was the last known record of the picture until it recently resurfaced in 2010.

The inscription on the old backing paper with the name H. Herkomer may suggest that the British painter Hubert von Herkomer (1849-1914) purchased or otherwise acquired the work in 1887.

The watercolor follows the precise design of La Farge's 1869 now-destroyed easel painting of the same subject, entitled Sleep in early publications. The sitter for the 1869 oil was the artist's wife. In all likelihood, the present work was executed from the oil painting sometime in 1884 or 1885. The oil painting was loaned back to the artist and sent to his New York studio for photography in anticipation of its reproduction in Mariana Griswold van Rensselaer's Book of American Figure Painters, published in 1886.

We are grateful to James L. Yarnall, Ph.D. for preparing the catalogue entry for this work.