Lot 13: Will Sparks (1862-1937) The Stevenson House 12 1/2 x 15 1/2in US$ 4,000 - 6,000

Will Sparks (1862-1937)
The Stevenson House signed 'Will Sparks' (lower left)oil on canvas12 1/2 x 15 1/2inoverall: 18 3/4 x 21 3/4in

Provenancewith William A. Karges Fine Art, Carmel, California.Private collection, Monterey, California.Sale, Bonhams, San Francisco and Los Angeles, California and Western Paintings & Sculpture, August 7, 2012, sale 20033, lot 45. Private collection, California.The Stevenson House was a 19th Century Spanish adobe-turned-rooming house called the French Hotel, named after its best-known boarder, Robert Louis Stevenson. Stevenson lived at the house from September to December 1879 while writing The Amateur Emigrant about his journey to California. 1 The hotel became an enclave for the city's Bohemian set, with artists such as Francis McComas, August Gay, and Clayton S. Price as residents. 2 The adobe was saved in 1937 from demolition by two architectural preservationists—Hibernia Bank heiress Celia Tobin Clark and San Francisco society woman Edith C. Chesebrough Van Antwerp—who deeded it to the state in 1941. The adobe opened as a museum dedicated to Stevenson in 1949, where it can be visited today.1 Lori Lindberg, Guide to the Stevenson House Collection. Monterey State Historic Park, 2002, Nancy Boas, The Society of Six: California Colorists, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1988, p. 135-136.