MAXFIELD PARRISH (1870-1966)

Villa d'Este

Details
MAXFIELD PARRISH (1870-1966)
Villa d'Este
signed with initials 'M·P' (lower right)—signed again, dated and inscribed with title 'Maxfield Parrish./"The Oaks"/Windsor, Vermont./December of 1903.' (on the reverse)
oil on paper laid down on board
28 x 18 in. (71.1 x 45.7 cm.)
Painted in 1903.
Provenance
Private collection.
Andrew Crispo Gallery, New York.
Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, Lugano, Switzerland, 1979.
Phillips, New York, 3 December 2002, lot 58, sold by the above.
Adelson Galleries, New York.
Acquired by the present owner from the above.
Literature
E. Wharton, Italian Villas and Their Gardens, New York, 1904, n.p., illustrated (as Villa D'Este, near Tivoli).
E. Wharton, "Villas Near Rome," The Century Magazine, vol. LXVII, no. 6, April 1904, p. 865, illustrated (as The Villa D'Este).
"Magazines," The Southern Planter, vol. LXV, no. 4, April 1904, p. 282.
The Academy and Literature, no. 1668, April 23, 1904, p. 445.
C. Ludwig, Maxfield Parrish, New York, 1973, p. 206 (as Villa D'Este, Tivoli).
G. Levin, The Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection: Twentieth Century American Painting, London, 1987, pp. 32-33, no. 1, illustrated.
Exhibition
Boston, Massachusetts, Williams and Everett Company, Maxfield Parrish, 1904-05.
Kobe, Japan, Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Modern Art; Nagoya, Japan, Nagoya City Art Museum; Tokyo, The Bunkamura Museum of Art; Hiroshima, Japan, Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Two-Hundred Years of American Paintings from the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, January 5-August 25, 1991, no. 28.

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Lot Essay

Villa d'Este, Near Battaglia belongs to a series of landscapes painted by Maxfield Parrish to serve as illustrations for the 1904 publication, Italian Villas and their Gardens. Originally commissioned by Century Magazine as a series of articles, the writings were ultimately compiled into a book, with commentary by Edith Wharton. To prepare for the project, Parrish traveled to Italy in March of 1903, staying for three months, to take photographs and sketch the surrounding landscape. According to Coy Ludwig, "Italian Villas and Their Gardens provided an avenue of expression for Parrish's architectural interests, as well as for his growing desire to paint landscapes. The paintings, as a result, were a sensitive and striking departure from his more fanciful work, to which the public had grown accustomed." (Maxfield Parrish, New York, 1973, p. 32) Another from this series is in the collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Art in Minnesota.

The present work depicts the 16th-century Villa d'Este in Tivoli, designed for Cardinal Ippolito II d’Este of Ferrara.