Description
JOHN LA FARGE
(american 1835-1910)
"A BOY AND HIS DOG (DICKEY HUNT)"
Oil on paperboard laid on canvas
40 x 34 in. (101.6 x 86.4cm)
provenance:
Albert Stickney, New York, 1884(?)-1908.
Mrs. Albert Stickney, New York, 1908-1911.
J.G. Butler, Jr., Youngstown, Ohio, 1912(?)-1923.
Edwin C. Shaw, Akron, Ohio, 1923-1941.
Caroline Shaw, Akron, Ohio, 1941-1955.
The Estates of James A. & Dorothy C. Vaughn, Sea Island, Georgia, 1955-present.
exhibited:
National Academy of Design, New York, 1874, cat. no. 72.
Inter-State Industrial Exposition, Probably, Chicago, 1875, cat. no. 23.
Centennial Exposition, Philadelphia, 1876, cat. no. 417.
Pierce & Co., Boston, 1878, 2nd day, cat. no. 12.
Society of American Artists, New York, 1880, cat. no. 58.
Konigliche Glaspalaste, Munich, 1883, cat. no. 1130.
Ortgies & Co., New York, 1884, cat. no. 24.
Vose Gallery, Boston, 1911, cat. no. 97.
Panama-Pacific Exposition, San Francisco, 1915, cat. no. 2674.
Akron Art Museum, Akron, Ohio, 'The Edwin C. Shaw Collection of American Impressionist and Tonalist Painting', April 19-June 29, 1986.
Museum of Art, Science & Industry, Bridgeport, Connecticut, 'American Artists Abroad: Painting In The European Style', September, 27-November 9, 1986.
literature:
The Edwin C. Shaw Collection of American Impressionist and Tonalist Paintings by William Robinson, Akron Art Museum, 1986, pp. 80-81, illustrated.
A Beautiful Child and a Portrait Commission Gone Awry: The Richard Morris Hunts and John La Farge by James L. Yarnall, American Art Journal, Vol. 29, 1998, pp. 86-97.
Art News, March 31, 1923, p.1.
note:
"A Boy and His Dog is a little known but highly important work executed at the end of La Farge's Newport period, around 1868-1869. The sitter is "Dickey" or Richard Morris Hunt, Jr., son of the famous architect. La Farge was at this time closely involved with the circle of William Morris Hunt.
Historian James L. Yarnell has said of this work: "This is a singular work in La Farge's career, his only large scale, semi-formal portrait." Art historian Henry Adams has observed that during 1868-1869 La Farge concentrated his efforts on two ambitious figure paintings, this one and The Sleeping Girl (destroyed by fire). Since La Farge would soon turn his attention to decorative works and stained glass, "in many ways these two paintings mark the end of his career as an easel painter."
The precise genesis of this work is not known. Historian Henry A. La Farge believes it was originally a commissioned portrait which was later turned into an exhibition piece. It is known that La Farge worked this painting for a long period of time, requiring that the dog be tied, which greatly displeased the boy. The artist eventually asked his own son, Bancel, to pose for the figure. Bancel later reported to Sargent Kendall:
It was painted at a moment when he was working gradually alone and has very distinctly the qualities of that epoch...I was a little boy at the time and remember posing for the picture, perhaps for a hand of the feet or what is more likely, to hold the dog.
Although this painting may have begun as a commissioned portrait, it was never in the Hunt family collection. The artist exhibited it in 1876 simply as Portrait-Boy and Dog . La Farge seems to have become more interested in it as a study of natural, outdoor light than as a portrait; it was even subtitled Study in Sunlight in the catalogue of an exhibition in New York in 1884.
The painting's sharp contrasts and fresh, strong colors are the result of natural light, which is quite unlike the soft, gentle shading of studio light. The artist has attempted to translate concerns of his plein air landscapes to genre of figure painting. While the subject and interest in natural detail may reflect the influence of the Pre-Raphaelites and Ruskin's "truth to nature" aesthetic, the broad handling is closer in spirit to the paintings of Gustave Courbet and the French Realists.
Henry Adams has speculated about the possible meaning of the subject, which he regards as depicting "the interaction fo the two minds, the one animal and the other human," noting that the "deep psychic communion between the boy and the dog" reflects the existence of a "harmony between the bestial and the human mind."
There are no specific symbols or narrative meanings to this painting. In that sense, it is similar to the artist's flower pieces: behind the veneer of a sensuous, beautifully painted, naturalist image exist implications of more complex meanings. A Boy and His Dog is thus representative of La Farge's best work. It is both beautifully painted and replete with the mysterious aura of personal associations and unexplained meanings."
Text by William Robinson from the catalogue for The Edwin C. Shaw Collection of American Impressionist and Tonalist Painting, Akron Art Museum, 19 April-29 June, 1986, pp. 80-81, illustrated.
With regards to the genesis of the work, the noted La Farge scholar, James Yarnall was subsequently able to shed some light on the paintings origins in an article published in the American Art Journal, Vol. 29, 1998. According to Catherine Hunt's memoirs, the portrait was intended to commemorate the sitters appearance prior to his childhood locks being shorn. The Hunt's only ever envisaged a sketch being done and it was La Farge who took it upon himself to create the full length and more ambitious depiction much to the displeasure of his patrons. The acrimony between the two parties was further exacerbated by La Farge's failure to deliver the portrait on time - Richard Hunt intended it to be a seventh wedding anniversary gift to his wife on April 2, 1868. The painting remained unfinished six months later and on the Hunts return to Newport from New York in the spring of 1869 they refused to take the portrait leaving it in the artists hands. In 1885 the painting was finally sold to a collector of La Farge's work, the New York lawyer, Albert Stickney.
