?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 5,000 - $ 8,000
WINSLOW HOMER Portrait of Charles Savage Homer, Jr.
Pencil on yellowish cream wove paper, on the front free end page of the artist's personal copy of The Laws of Contrast of Colour by Chevreul, and two additional pencil studies of a woman in a dress in pencil, on the rear free end page, 1860. 160x100 mm; 6 1/2x4 inches (sheets). Dedicated "To Winslow Homer" and dated "July 10, 1860" by the artist's brother Charles Savage Homer, Jr., in pen and blue ink on the front free end page, and inscribed "No. 8 University Building, New York City" by the artist in pen and black ink on the front free end page. Additionally signed and dated "1884" in pencil on the rear free end page. With numerous annotations, mainly of color triads, on the rear free end pages and throughout the book, in pencil and pen and ink.
Ex-collection the artist, Prouts Neck, Maine; likely acquired from Charles Lowell Homer, the artist's nephew, with other works from the artist's personal library by Margaret Woodbury Strong, Rochester, New York.
Published in Tatham, "Winslow Homer's Library," American Art Journal, 1977, volume IX, number 1, pages 92-98 (the portrait illustrated).
According to Tatham, "The book was presented to Winslow Homer by his older brother Charles (1834-1917) in 1860, before Homer had begun seriously to paint in oils (though he was by this time well-established as a popular illustrator and had used watercolor washes for some of his drawings). Homer apparently used the book as a basic guide for color usage throughout his career. It is the only book on art known to have been owned by Homer except for unidentified works on the etching process . . . Beyond its use as a color guide, this copy seems to have been used by Homer as a kind of scrap book, including as it does Homer's pencil portrait of his brother, Homer's address at the New York University Building during 1861-72, a photograph dated 1882 from his years in England, a clipping of 1887 or later showing Chevreul at age 102 and many other markings and inscriptions."
Homer's friend and fellow artist John W. Beatty (1869-1941), Director of the Carnegie Institute's Department of Fine Arts, Pittsburgh, visited Homer at Prouts Neck in 1903 and took note of this book in his studio. Beatty picked up the book from a table in the studio and asked Homer if he found it of value, to which Homer quickly and succinctly replied, "It is my Bible," (see Goodrich, Winslow Homer, New York, 1944).
With another, unmarked copy of the same book, also from the artist's Prouts Neck library. Property of The Strong, Rochester, NY, sold to benefit the museum's collections fund.
