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Lot Essay
Léon Delachaux was of Franco-Swiss extraction, and emigrated to New York in 1872 to work as a precious metal engraver in the watchmaking industry, a trade he had probably learned from his parents, who were both clockmakers. After visiting the art exhibition at the 1876 World's Fair in Philadelphia, Delachaux was inspired to make art himself, enrolling at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts to study under Thomas Cowperthwaite Eakins, recognized today as the master of American realism, where he took classes from 1876-1881. By the time the present work was executed in 1882, the artist had expressed a desire to return to France and would do so the following year, though he took American citizenship that same year in order to be able to more easily supply work to James Earle, his Philadelphia dealer, without paying high French export taxes. The artist would exhibit works in the US for most of the rest of his life, and his last US exhibition was in 1916 when he took part in The Exhibition of French and Belgian Art from the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in Ohio only a few years before his death. He took French citizenship in 1907.
The present watercolor has been undocumented for nearly 150 years, and its rediscovery is cause for excitement. Delachaux exhibited the work at the First Annual National Water-Color Exhibition held by the Philadelphia Society of Artists in 1882, exhibiting alongside works by his teacher Eakins. The work is mentioned by the title given to it by the artist, 'Going Home to Georgia', by the critic L. W. Miller in his review of the exhibition as the best work by the artist in the exhibition. Miller notes that the ‘conception is quiet and dignified, and the treatment simple and in good taste’ though an image of the work has not been known until now. Miller describes the work as depicting a Black figure ‘with capacious carpet-bag and enormous umbrella, waiting on the platform of a railroad station for the train that shall carry him back to the sunny South.’ As the advertisements on the wall behind the figure are for both train and packet journeys which suggest a port city, the scene may have been inspired by something the artist saw in Philadelphia, though the romanticized description given by Miller (and indeed by the artist in the title) is not reflective of the lived experience of Black men and women in the US during this period following the Civil War.
We are grateful to the Fonds de Dotation Léon Delachaux for confirming the authenticity of this work, which is included in their catalogue raisonné of the artist's work.
The present watercolor has been undocumented for nearly 150 years, and its rediscovery is cause for excitement. Delachaux exhibited the work at the First Annual National Water-Color Exhibition held by the Philadelphia Society of Artists in 1882, exhibiting alongside works by his teacher Eakins. The work is mentioned by the title given to it by the artist, 'Going Home to Georgia', by the critic L. W. Miller in his review of the exhibition as the best work by the artist in the exhibition. Miller notes that the ‘conception is quiet and dignified, and the treatment simple and in good taste’ though an image of the work has not been known until now. Miller describes the work as depicting a Black figure ‘with capacious carpet-bag and enormous umbrella, waiting on the platform of a railroad station for the train that shall carry him back to the sunny South.’ As the advertisements on the wall behind the figure are for both train and packet journeys which suggest a port city, the scene may have been inspired by something the artist saw in Philadelphia, though the romanticized description given by Miller (and indeed by the artist in the title) is not reflective of the lived experience of Black men and women in the US during this period following the Civil War.
We are grateful to the Fonds de Dotation Léon Delachaux for confirming the authenticity of this work, which is included in their catalogue raisonné of the artist's work.