Description:

Enoch Wood Perry Jr. (American, 1831-1915) , "Women Weaving - The Wicker Workers", oil on canvas, signed lower left, 34 1/2 in. x 54 in., period frame. Provenance: Sotheby's, New York, Mar. 11, 1999, lot 19; Bocage Antebellum Home, Darrow, LA. Note: Enoch Wood Perry, Jr. was born in Boston in 1831 and spent his formative adolescent and young adulthood years in New Orleans where his family moved in 1848. He was determined to become an artist and earned enough money to travel to Europe to study at the Düsseldorf Academy in Germany and Thomas Couture’s atelier in France. Upon moving back to the United States, Perry first opened a studio in Philadelphia before returning to New Orleans on the eve of the Civil War and opening a studio here. Perry began traveling throughout the United States, perhaps most notably to Hawaii where he painted landscapes, portraits of wealthy landowners and Hawaiian royalty. Perry is nationally recognized for his genre scenes and portraits of prominent Americans. In the 19th century American glass factories produced millions of bottles and provided a major industry for female and child labor securing glass jugs to protect them from breakage and the materials inside from sun damage. This kind of work provided cash for families that were struggling as the industrial revolution caused social and economic change. In the monumental canvas offered here entitled “Women Weaving – The Wicker Workers,” women and children are depicted warmly lit by the sun pouring in through the window while casually weaving willow or seagrass around glass jugs, the largest of which are called “demijohns”. In the center, carefully illuminated and anchoring the composition, is a woman in red and white plaid seemingly lost in tranquil revery. Eyes unfocused and a placid expression on her face, she sits idly with an unfinished bottle in her lap. Close inspection reveals other details with each anonymous figure, portrait-like in their distinct mannerisms and frozen expressions. There is the young boy to the right who is absorbed by his weaving—practically a genre scene of its own, the woman by window in blue stripes who is distracted by something outside, and the foreman in the shadowed doorframe whose voyeuristic, intrusive gaze mirrors that of the viewer. Perry’s ability to render impeccable details and sensitive expressions shines in this remarkable American genre scene. Ref.: Rumrill, Alan F. “Working From Home”. Historical Society of Cheshire County. May 2020. https://hsccnh.org. Accessed Oct. 21, 2022.

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November 18, 2022 1:00 PM CST
New Orleans, LA, US

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