A calm seascape of a small island with a gap between flat rocks in the foreground.
Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College
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Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College

A small verdant green island consisting of a few trees floats in the middle of an inlet of tranquil water that’s painted in a variety of blues and aquas. More small trees are painted in the distance on right, with a small hut between palm trees on a different land mass on the right. The placid sky is rendered in variation of blues, without defined clouds. The foreground rocks are painted with shadows and highlights accentuating the solid mass and depth. There’s handwriting along the bottom in the margins.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
1942.60
People
John La Farge, American (New York, NY 1835 - 1910 Providence, RI)
Title
Buttresses of the First Christian Church, and Siga's Tomb at Sapapali, Samoa
Classification
Drawings
Work Type
drawing
Date
1890
Culture
American
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/307836

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Watercolor on ivory wove paper
Dimensions
21 x 32.7 cm (8 1/4 x 12 7/8 in.)
Inscriptions and Marks
  • inscription: left of image, graphite, in artist's hand: reef line
  • label: l.l.c., paper: 104
  • inscription: l.l., under image, graphite, in artist's hand: Late evening / Sapapali / Savai'i / Samoa / Oct 26 90
  • inscription: lower center, under image, graphite, in artist's hand: Tide coming in, almost full / The stones in foreground are the edges of / coral cement platform anchor for a church by Malietoa Laupepa [Laupepa was a chief]
  • inscription: l.r., graphite, in artist's hand: Siga's Tomb / under water
  • label: removed from old mount, now in curatorial file, paper, printed: [Image of stone tablet with a raised shield with lion rampant, helmet at l.r.] Grenville / Lindall / Winthrop
  • stamp: removed from old mount, now in curatorial file, black ink: [stamped:] WM; [handwritten:] 8015
  • gallery label: removed from old mount, now in curatorial file, paper, printed and handwritten: [printed in blue ink:] Paintings by American Artists / William Macbeth / Incorporated / 11 East 57th Street New York / [handwritten in black ink:] Buttresses of the First Christian / Church at Sapapali, Samoa / John La Farge
  • exhibition label: removed from old mount, now in curatorial file, paper, printed and typed: Special Loan Exhibition of Works of John La Farge, S.L. no. 2522.3
  • inscription: removed from old mount, now in curatorial file, black ink, signed, in artist's hand: Buttresses of the First Christian Church / Sapapali Samoa 1890 / Also the Tomb of Siga in / the Reef-- covered at high tide / John LaFarge 1890 / from nature [under this, in black ink: The above is in La Farge's / handwriting.]

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
John La Farge estate sale, American Art Association, New York, 1911; purchased at that sale by Edward P. Slevin; purchased by the Macbeth Gallery, New York, before 1938; their sale to Grenville L. Winthrop, New York, 1938.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift of Grenville L. Winthrop, Class of 1886
Accession Year
1942
Object Number
1942.60
Division
European and American Art
Contact
am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
Permissions

THIS WORK MAY NOT BE LENT BY THE TERMS OF ITS ACQUISITION TO THE HARVARD ART MUSEUMS.

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Publication History

  • Henry A. La Farge, Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of John La Farge, Unpublished (n.d.), card 266
  • John La Farge, Reminiscences of the South Seas, JLF KPI Ltd. (Garden City, NY, 1912), p. 198, ill., opp.
  • The Metropolitan Museum of Art, An Exhibition of the Work of John La Farge, exh. cat., Blanchard Press, Inc. (New York, NY, 1936), no. 54, reproduced in b/w
  • Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr., Virginia Anderson, and Kimberly Orcutt, ed., American Paintings at Harvard, Volume Two, Paintings, Drawings, Pastels and Stained Glass by Artists Born 1826-1856, Harvard Art Museums and Yale University Press (U.S.) (Cambridge, MA and New Haven, CT, 2008), p. 200-01, cat. no. 153, reproduced in b&w

Exhibition History

  • Paintings, Studies, Sketches and Drawings, Mostly Records of Travel 1886 and 1890 - 91 by John La Farge, Durand-Ruel [New York], New York, 02/25/1895 - 03/25/1895; Durand-Ruel Paris, Paris, 03/31/1895 - 04/30/1895
  • Exhibition of Glass, Oil and Water Color Paintings and Sketches by John La Farge, Knoedler & Co. Inc., New York, 02/15/1909 - 02/28/1909
  • Catalogue of Oil and Water Color Paintings and Sketches by John La Farge, Doll and Richards Gallery, Boston, 03/18/1909 - 04/01/1909
  • An Exhibition of the Work of John La Farge, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 03/23/1936 - 04/26/1936

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of European and American Art at am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu