Lot 162: Mary Ethel Young Hunter , 1878-1936 down beacon hill from tudor penthouse, boston oil on board

signed and dated l.l.: Mary Y Hunter 1910 oil on board

measurements note 71 by 91.5 cm., 28 by 36 in.

London, Pyms Gallery, Edwardian Pre-Raphaelites, The Art of John and Mary Young Hunter, June 2000, no. 45

By descent through the artist's family

PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION
This evocative evening scene of the afterglow over the city of Boston, was painted from the upper window of a penthouse named The Tudors Penthouse, looking down to the Charles river through the neighbourhood of Beacon Hill. The Tudors was the home of William Finlay Morgan and his wife Elise who the Young Hunters befriended soon after arriving in Boston in 1910. This was Mary's first visit to America and both she and her husband received a warm reception, facilitated by a letter of introduction from John Singer Sargent to the collector and socialite Isabella Stewart Gardner. The moody greys and cool blues of the buildings are softened by chimney smoke rising in plumes from apartment blocks on the residential side of the river and from the factories of the other bank. The tones evoke the winter chill as gaslights are turned on in the buildings and along the esplanade and avenues. Mary Young Hunter was clearly inspired by the grandeur of the modern metropolis which she has painted with the bravura of contemporary American art.