Description:

Joseph Rusling Meeker (American/Louisiana, 1827-1887), "Untitled (Likely Cuba near the Yumuri Valley)", 1872, oil on canvas, signed and dated lower right, 30 in. x 50 in., period frame. Note: Many of the greatest nineteenth century American landscape painters, such as Albert Bierstadt, Thomas Moran, George Inness, and Winslow Homer, traveled to the West Indies to capture the beautiful mountains, valleys, and tropical vistas. The Caribbean provided the warm climate and exotic panoramas often sought out by artists who desired a change in scenery from American topography. Often called the northernmost city in the Caribbean, New Orleans was the perfect departure point for these artists, many of whom left from that port to Cuba, the Bahamas, or other tropical destinations. Joseph Rusling Meeker, who studied under Hudson River School painter Asher B. Durand, was well versed in American landscape painting. Born in Newark, New Jersey, Meeker studied and worked in New York City, and Louisville, Kentucky, before settling in St. Louis, Missouri in 1859. During the Civil War, Meeker traveled up and down the Mississippi River with the Union Navy; his time near the mouth of the Mississippi exposed him to a new type of landscape, and he learned to love the humid atmosphere, which dispersed the light in a beautiful, hazy manner. After the war, Meeker continued to make summer trips to the New Orleans area to sketch the nearby lakes, bayous, and swamps; his sketches and notes provided the material needed to complete his canvases back in St. Louis at a later time. During Meeker’s many trips near the Gulf of Mexico, it seems likely that he decided to extend his travels to the West Indies as many of his colleagues did. A painting of the distinctive cliffs and palm trees overlooking the Caribbean by William Henry Buck, sold in these rooms on April 21, 2012 as lot 476, indicates that Buck also traveled to the West Indies, although no documentation has yet been discovered. The current lot, with its luminous atmospheric effects, includes mountains, palm trees, and a body of water; although compositionally different, thematically it resembles Charles de Wolf Brownell’s 1860 view of the Bay of Matanzas, Cuba, located at the Milwaukee Art Museum. In the foreground Meeker has added American White Ibises, whose habitat exists around the edges of the Gulf of Mexico, up the Eastern coast of North America, and throughout the Caribbean. Meeker has treated the composition of this painting in a similar way to his Louisiana swamp and bayou scenes, with trees scattered throughout the background and middle ground, while the foreground includes small plants and animals. The current lot specifically has many similarities with Meeker’s Bayou Plaquemines of 1881; both paintings illustrate the artist’s tonalist technique in depicting the way the light diffuses over a semi-tropical body of a water during a sunset. Ref.: Brown, C. Reynolds. Joseph Rusling Meeker: Images of the Mississippi Delta. Montgomery, Alabama: Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, 1981. Dixson, Kathryn Vogt. “Joseph Rusling Meeker: The Land of Evangeline and Beyond,” Gateway Heritage, Vol. 3, No. 3 (Winter 1982-83): 10-15.

  • Condition: All lots are sold “As is” and “Where is”. Neal Auction provides condition reports on items with a low estimate over $500 as a courtesy to aid in your bidding decision. No statement regarding age, condition, kind, value, or quality of a lot, whether made orally at the auction or at any other time, or in writing in this catalogue or elsewhere, shall be construed to be an express or implied warranty, representation, or assumption of liability. Completed condition reports are posted as an additional image with the lot. Neal Auction does not give refunds.

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September 9, 2017 10:00 AM CDT
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