Miller's art is also owned by these
additional museums: Rhode Island School of Design-Museum of Art, Providence, RI, University of Wyoming Art Museum, Laramie, WY, Museum of Art at Brigham Young University,
Provo, UT, Brooklyn
Institute Museum, Brooklyn, NY and The Long Island Museum of American Art, History and Carriages,
Stony Brook, New York.
Note 2). Miller obviously viewed
this very painterly work, “Sunset at Purgatory, Newport, Rhode Island,” with
the highest pride and esteem, which was the only painting Miller presented for
exhibition to the Salons of Paris (the Paris Salon), that was selected and
accepted for its annual exhibition of 1882, which was a remarkable achievement
for an American at that time. Miller obviously cherished this painting, did not
sell it; and retained it in his possession until the end of his life. The
reason for Miller's attitude toward this painting is, in addition to its
acceptance for exhibition at the Paris Salon of 1882, Miller's painterly
technique manifested in this painting combined most clearly and definitively
the heart of his then artistic philosophy, which was greatly influenced by both
the great French Barbizon painters regarding the painting of landscape and the
Englishman J. M.W. Turner regarding the painting of skies. This Miller painting
was the culmination of his early attempts to fuse and amalgamate these two
styles in a single painting. Thus, this painting is important in an art history
context, regarding Miller's oeuvre, as it represents an early major and
significant statement of Miller concerning his then artistic philosophy, which
he never forgot. Mr. Fastov, who has owned this painting for over 35 years,
believes that there is no other Miller painting, which has appeared at auction,
that even comes close to equaling, let alone, exceeding Miller's skill in
executing this painting, and none of them is a more clear or better statement
of Miller's then artistic philosophy. “Sunset at Purgatory, Newport, Rhode
Island,” according to Mr. Fastov, who has owned several other Miller paintings,
which he has sold previously, is Miller's “piĕce de resistance,” which he
retained and never offered for sale. These considerations, the factors
discussed above, the implications of Miller's incredibly impressive curriculum
vitae, as published in Askart.com and Wikipedia (See Note 1 above), and the new
developments discussed in the following sentences concerning Miller and the
reawakening of interest in Miller, render the records of Miller’s auction sales
of much inferior Miller paintings, irrelevant to establishing the presale
estimate for “Sunset at Purgatory, Newport, Rhode Island.” Miller was the
subject of a very recent exhibition, “Charles Henry Miller: Painter of Long
Island.” at the Suffolk County, New York Historical Society from December 2, 1911
to February 11, 2012. In addition, the first book form monograph on Miller was
published in January, 2012, entitled: “Charles Henry Miller, N.A. Painter of
Long Island” by Geoffrey K. Fleming and Ruth Ann Bramson, which is 200
pages in length and contains 140 color plates and is for sale for $40. All of
the foregoing considerations render the above presale estimate of
$10,000-$15,000 for this painting reasonable and justifiable, and should cause
sophisticated collectors of 19th century American landscapes to bid
aggressively for “Sunset at Purgatory, Newport, Rhode Island.”