THEODORE ROBINSON
Portrait of Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst.

Oil on canvas, circa 1895. 560x460 mm; 22x18 inches.

Provenance: Collection of the sitter, the artist Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst; thence by descent; acquired by private collection, Massachusetts, 1993.

Published: Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst, The Painter in Oil, Lee & Shepard, Boston, 1898, page 379 (illustrated).

The current oil on canvas was used as an example of an ébouch, a preliminary study of composition and color or the under-painting in Parkhurst's treatise on oil painting technique, The Painter in Oil. This book was among the most popular art treatises of the time, detailed oil painting techniques dating back to the Old Masters.

Robinson (1852-1896), who is among the leading American Impressionist artists of the time, produced this study of Parkhurst from a sitting of one and a half hours. During the mid to late 1880s, Robinson worked with Claude Monet at his home and gardens in Giverny, France. Though not formally a student of Monet's, he was, along with a small group of fellow American painters, permitted to work with the French Impressionist master and over six years in Giverny became a close friend of Monet and a member of his inner circle of fellow Impressionist artists.

 

Estimate: $ 4,000 - $ 6,000