Early Moonlight

Details

BENJAMIN FOSTER (1852-1926)
Early Moonlight
signed 'Ben Foster.' (lower left)
oil on canvas
36 x 30 in. (91.4 x 76.2 cm.)
Painted circa 1912.

Provenance

The artist.
Charlotte Scott Chapin, acquired from the above.
Gift to the present owner from the above, 1912.

Literature

(Probably) R.G. McIntyre, "Exhibition of the National Academy," Fine Arts Journal, vol. XXVI, no. 2, February 1912, p. 90.
Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo Museum of Art News, no. 20, December 1912, n.p., illustrated.
"The Art Museums' Monthly Digest," The Lotus Magazine, vol. IV, no. 4, January 1913, p. 154.
"News Items," Art and Progress, vol. IV, no. 4, February 1913, p. 880.
Toledo Museum of Art, Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture, November 1913, p. 7, no. 16.
Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo Museum of Art News, no. 82, June 1938, illustrated.
S.E. Strickler, The Toledo Museum of Art: American Paintings, Toledo, Ohio, 1979, pp. 49, 172, pl. 130, illustrated.

Exhibited

(Probably) New York, National Academy of Design, Winter Exhibition, December 9, 1911-January 7, 1912, p. 32, no. 270.
Toledo, Ohio, Toledo Museum of Art, Inaugural Exhibition, January 18-February 12, 1912, p. 14, no. 34.
Toledo, Ohio, Toledo Museum of Art, Fiftieth Anniversary Exhibition of Contemporary American Oil Paintings Acquired by the Toledo Museum 1901-1951, August-September 1951.

Conditions of sale

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Lot Essay

Born in North Anson, Maine, in 1852, Benjamin Foster later studied under Abbott Thayer in New York before training in Paris. In the present work, "Foster's interpretation of the tender phases of evening light shows his power to feel the soul of nature. Moonlight and starlight sweep over the slope of the hill brushing the wall with a silver rime and setting a crown upon the trees of the dense forest on the crest of the hill. It was painted at Cornish, New Hampshire...This is one of Ben Foster's masterpieces" (Toledo Museum of Art News, no. 20, December 1912, n.p.).

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