The following
description for has been prepared entirely by the current owner, Roberts S.
Fastov, Esq., and, at the collector’s request, has not been edited by Sloans
& Kenyon
Note 1) In
response to Mr. Fastov’s e-mail of September 14, 2012 regarding this Eastman
watercolor, to the Western Reserve Historical Society, Dean Zimmerman, a
curator of the Society, telephoned Mr. Fastov in late September, and advised
him that the Society very much liked the watercolor; was interested in it; and
that the Society had absolutely no reservations about the watercolor depicting
a scene on Lake Erie, at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River, with a view of some
of the early settlement buildings of Cleveland, Ohio. Mr. Fastov had written a
letter of February 18, 1983 to Rena N. Coen, Professor of Art History, St.
Cloud State University, St. Cloud, Minnesota, asking her to authenticate this
watercolor, as being by Seth Eastman, and had provided his reasons for such
authentication, because Mr. Fastov had obtained a recommendation that he seek
assistance from and consult with Professor Coen from William Truettner, then
Chief Curator, of the then National Collection of Fine Arts, in Washington,
D.C. (now the Smithsonian Museum of American Art), who stated, in effect, that
Professor Coen had a reputation of studying extensively Eastman’s works of art,
including his water colors, and was regarded as the art expert on Eastman. In a
letter to Mr. Fastov of February 23, 1983, Professor Coen replied, in part, as
follows:
Dear Mr.
Fastov:
I believe
you are quite correct in attributing your watercolor to Seth Eastman. In
addition to your own perceptive observations on Eastman’s style, I would add
the following comments:
1. Your picture displays the artist’s
characteristic water color palette, namely, soft, rather muted tones of blues,
greys and browns.
2. The treatment of the Indians look typically
Eastman-ish to me. In his watercolors, Eastman usually sketched Indians in
broad, rather rapid strokes, and made them appear rather lumpish. In contrast
to his oils where the Indians are much more carefully delineated and appear far
more dignified.
3. The treatment of the lake as a
broad, flat, luminous sheet of water is also typical of Eastman’s other
watercolors….”
Professor Coen’s very lengthy, detailed and
impressive obituary of October 19, 2001 appeared in the Minneapolis Star
Tribune, and stated, in part, at the outset:
Art historian Rena Neumann Coen, whose influential books
and lectures on 19th-century Minnesota artists illuminated long-ignored aspects
of the state's cultural history, died Thursday at her home in St. Louis Park.
She was 76 …. Coen worked on a new book about Minnesota Impressionist painter
Nicholas Brewer until shortly before her death, said Patricia Condon Johnston,
head of the Afton Historical Society Press, which published Coen's 1997
"Minnesota Impressionists." Afton Press also interviewed her for a
recent TV program it co-produced with Twin Cities Public Television about Seth
Eastman, a 19th-century soldier and artist at Fort Snelling (Emphasis
added).
In his letter to Professor Coen of February 18,
1983, seeking her authentication of his watercolor as being by Eastman, he
discussed the following 3 major reasons, as to why he was certain that this
watercolor was, in fact, executed by Eastman, as follows:
I believe that Eastman’s most
distinctive (perhaps unique among Western artists of this period) stylistic
characteristic is one of his methods of handling sky and cloud formations. The
clouds in my watercolor have a scudding, erratic, somewhat jagged quality. [Mr.
Fastov then cites her to plates of Eastman watercolors manifesting these
characteristics in Francis McDermott’s (1902-1981) two publications on Eastman, Seth Eastman, Pictorial Historian of the
Indian” (“Pictorial Historian”) (plates 4, 94, and 114) and Seth Eastman’s Mississippi, A Lost Portfolio
Recovered (“Mississippi”) (plates 3, 5,17, 20, 25, 27, 28, 37, 41, 45, 46,
50, 51, 53, 65, etc.) Mr. Fastov could not consult McDermott in 1983, as he
died in 1981] To the best of my knowledge, no other western artist of this
period executed sky and cloud formation in this manner.
The placement and handling of
bushes, leafy vegetation and broken tree limbs in a soft, loose manner in the
foreground of my watercolor can be found in a number of Eastman watercolors.
See, e.g., plates 80, 81, 94 of Pictorial Historian and plates 4, 6, 11, 12,
24, 43 and 68 of Mississippi.
The inclusion of, and soft,
somewhat sketchy rendering of a group of Indians (in the right foreground of my
watercolor) is also typical of Eastman watercolors. See, e.g., plate 80 of
Pictorial Historian, plates 11, 19, 28, 43, 69, and 71 of Mississippi, and the
“Sioux Encampment, Probably Shakopee’s Village” as illustrated in Volume 87,
No. 3, plate 8 of the Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections entitled “Seth
Eastman: The Master Painter of the North American Indian.” Please note the
handling of the vegetation in the foreground of this plate, as well.
There are other less distinctive
characteristics, e.g., the texture of the landscape in mid-ground, that appear
in other Eastman watercolors. In any event, the presence of all of the
above-three major Eastman characteristics in my watercolor, especially the
handling of the sky, have led me to conclude that my watercolor is definitely
by Eastman. In this regard, none of the other contemporary western artists
manifest all of these compositional and technical characteristics. In
this regard, I am familiar with and reviewed the work of other contemporary
western artists. Those manifesting superficial and partial stylistic
similarities to Eastman and this watercolor (e.g., Miller, Stanley and Bodmer)
do not stand up under close scrutiny.
When I talked to Bill Truettner,
he suggested that the scene in my watercolor could well be on the Great Lakes.
[At that point, Mr. Fastov was not
aware of the writing on the verso of the watercolor that it depicted Lake Erie
and Cleveland, 1833, which first surfaced in the conservation of the watercolor
in 1984. Thus, he expressed the view in his 1983 letter to Professor Coen, that
he thought his watercolor might be a view of the Mackinac from the promontory
in front of the fort. Professor Coen stated that she “did not personally know
the area around Mackinac but you seem to be right about the spot where Eastman
painted your picture.”] Copies of this Fastov/Coen correspondence will be
furnished to the purchaser of this lot.
Note 2) Per Askart.com, in addition to several
paintings in the U.S. Capitol, Eastman 's work is held in 24 major museums,
including a significant number in the West and Midwest of the U. S., and the
Boston Museum of Fine Arts, MA, Corcoran Gallery of Art, DC, National Academy
of Design Museum, NYC, NY, and Fogg Art Museum: Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, MA.
Askart.com provides the following biographical
sketch of Eastman:
"
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Biography
from Thomas Nygard Gallery: |
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Seth
Eastman, who spent more time among the Indians of the trans-Mississippi West
than probably any other artist of his day, was one of the few to record the
ordinary activities of nineteenth century Indian life. Born in New Brunswick,
Maine in 1808, he was appointed to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in
1824 where he trained as a topographical draftsman. He was assigned to duty on
the western frontier and, possibly influenced by the visits of artists such
as George Catlin, produced some of his Indian studies in 1829. |
Note 2) See also the Phillips, de Pury & Company catalogue entry for the Eastman watercolor for lot 65
(below), which brought $120,000 and makes clear that it is virtually certain
that Eastman painted this July 1833 watercolor, when he was returning east from
his service "from 1831-3 as the
artist for a topographical reconnaissance mission of frontier forts," having been "transferred to Fort
Snelling in Minnesota," per Phillips, de Pury & Company, in order to take on his new job of an appointed assistant
drawing instructor to Robert Weir at West Point (see Eastman bio above). Phillips, de Pury & Company stated:
"Eastman
studied drawing while at West Point before being assigned to Fort Crawford on
the Mississippi River where for four
years he documented tribal gatherings and in 1830 he was transferred to Fort
Snelling in Minnesota, now Minneapolis, and then served from 1831-3 as the
artist for a topographical reconnaissance mission of frontier forts.
From 1841 to 1848, he returned to Fort Snelling and sketched both Dakota and
Chippewa subjects. The Sun Dance depicted in this lot was performed by two
young men who would dance with whistles in their mouths for several days while
fasting."
The
catalogue provides the additional following commentary: "Works such as
these in Eastman's collections were received with great acclaim by artists'
circles. In 1848 he exhibited a number of them at the National Academy of
Design and Cincinnati's Western Art Union. A critic from the St. Louis
Republican noted 'Since we have known something of Eastman's pictures, and of
Indians, we have ranked him as out of sight the best painter of Indian life the
country has produced; a superior artist to Catlin-he has lived and painted for
years among the Indians, where Catlin has spent months; his gallery now, is far
more complete in all that relates to Indian character, than is Catlin's; and
there is in the latter, an effort at effect, as apparent as in the truth of
Eastman, to anyone who has really seen Indians.' As a result of Eastman's
success and the positive reception of his work, he and his family were moved to
Washington, D.C., in 1851 to work for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. He had been
chosen as the official illustrator for a five-year, Congress-approved
publication to record all of the Indian tribes of the United States, authored
by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft. The result was the six-volume Historical and
Statistical Information Respecting the History, Condition, and Prospects of the
Indian Tribes of the United States (1851-1857). The illustrations for
these volumes were etchings based upon original works executed by Eastman while
at Fort Snelling. Published on November 30, 1852, Worship of the Sun,
Dakota Dancers appears as an engraving executed by R. Hinshelwood in
volume III as plate 27. (Emphasis added).”
Note
3) Mr. Fastov's research to date convinces him that the Eastman watercolor
is one of the earliest artistic works depicting Cleveland, and may well be the
earliest known artistic view of Cleveland extant. These factors, along with
the following considerations, establish that the above presale estimate of
$80,000-$150,000 is reasonable and justifiable. Such considerations include:
the high artistic standing of Eastman (see Askart.com bio sketch of Eastman in
Note 1) above), who painted a number of paintings for Congress, that are in the
U.S. Capitol building. Moreover, this watercolor: is of historic significance
to the City of Cleveland, Ohio and the State of Ohio; depicts and features
Indians as the primary human figures featured in this watercolor; is a very
attractive and appealing composition; and is consistent with the style and
technique of Eastman's best Western watercolors. In addition, such estimate is
supported by Eastman's auction records, Eastman auction sales records (below). See the following relevant auction records
of the rare Eastman's watercolors, in which Indians are depicted, all of which
are significantly smaller (3 are 6 in. x 8.50 in. and 1 is 6 in. x 9 in.) than
the Eastman watercolor that is being offered at this auction (8 in. x 12 ¼ in.);
3 of which appear to be significantly faded, while the 1 watercolor that
brought $120,000, had bright, vibrant colors like this Eastman watercolor, that
is being offered at this auction. Most importantly, none of these 4
watercolors have historic ties to and depict a rare, early 19th
century image of what would become a major American city, Cleveland, Ohio; and
this auction watercolor, to the best of Mr. Fastov’s research and knowledge, may
well be the earliest known view of Cleveland, to further justify a conclusion
that the above presale estimate of $80,000-$150,000 is reasonable and
justifiable.
Title/Subject:
Striking The Post Signed and dated. Watercolor on paper. 6 in.
x 8.50 in. sold for $68,500 on 5/21/2009 at Sotheby’s, NY
Title/Subject:
Buffalo Hunt Watercolor/on paper. 6 in.
x 8.50 in. sold for $84,000 on 7/28/2007 at Coeur D'Alene Auction, ID
Title/Subject: On the St. John's River, Florida Watercolor/on paper. 6 in.
x 8.50 in. sold for $42,000 on 7/28/2007 at Coeur D'Alene Auction, ID
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