Sep 22, 2022 - Sale 2614

Sale 2614 - Lot 7

Price Realized: $ 6,250
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 5,000 - $ 8,000
JOHN HENRY TWACHTMAN
Festiniog (Over the Narrowest Narrow Gauge).

Oil on canvas, 1879. 200x250 mm; 8x10 inches. Incised with the artist's signature and date, lower left recto, and inscribed in oil, verso.

The current work is an early illustration design by Twachtman (1853-1902), an American painter who became best known for his impressionist landscapes, for Over the Narrowest Narrow Gauge, by William H. Bishop, which appeared in Scribner's Monthly, volume xviii, page 605.

Provenance: Private collection, New York.

Published: Lisa N. Peters, John Henry Twachtman Catalogue Raisonné, Greenwich Historical Society, 2021 (jhtwachtman.org), number OP.320.

The Ffestiniog Railway in Wales runs from Porthmadog to Blaenau Ffesiniog on a single track. The line was constructed between 1833 and 1836 to transport raw materials to the port in Porthmadog. The introduction of steam locomotives and passenger carriages in the 1860s allowed the railway to become more efficient and appealing to regional tourism. Operations closed on the line in August 1946, though shortly thereafter, groups have been active in restoration of the railway, slowly reopening each station.