JOHN LA FARGE The Sphynx is Weary, She Dreams o'er the World.
Gouache, watercolor and black chalk on illustration board, 1865. 260x315 mm; 10 1/4x12 3/8inches. Initialed and dated in watercolor, lower right recto.
Ex-collection F. Burrall Hoffman, Jr., New York and Hobe Sound; private collection, Vermont.
According to Dr. James L. Yarnall, "This is one of La Farge's most experimental watercolors of the 1860s. Mixing chalk, watercolor and gouache, he developed the kind of heavy-laden, expressive and painterly surface effects that came to characterize his watercolors after 1880."
One of several works that La Farge made to illustrate Ralph Waldo Emerson's poem, The Sphinx (this image was never published).
Another version of this watercolor and gouache, also from the Hoffman collection, was sold at Swann Auction Galleries, New York, June 12, 2014, sale 2354, lot 22.
