William Louis Sonntag, N.A. (American, 1822-1900), "Clement's Falls, Shelburne, New Hampshire", 1886, oil on canvas, signed "W. L. Sonntag" lower right, and (twice) boldly inscribed "Shelburne, N.H." in black paint on the stretcher, 9 3/4 in. x 12 in., in a finely carved giltwood period frame. E8000-12000 Note: This enchanting and highly colored sunset scene, combining the best of American Luminism with characteristic reminiscences of the French school of Barbizon painters (as are typical in Sonntag's mature work), represents a considerable discovery. It seems certainly identifiable as the lost "Clement's Falls, New Hampshire", recorded as a painting of "10 in. x 12 in.", but without notation of medium, that was exhibited by Sonntag at the National Academy of Design in 1886, as no. 264 (Nancy D. W. Moure, W. L. Sonntag, Los Angeles, 1980, p. 101, no. 55). The small falls on Clement Brook are a very short distance from the center of Shelburne, NH, just above the point at which that tributary joins the Androscoggin River; it would thus have been natural for Sonntag to inscribe this picture's reverse with the name of the town in which he was painting, but to label it with the more particularized name of the specific subject, for public exhibition. Born in western Pennsylvania and raised in Cincinnati, Sonntag in his late teens made a life- changing expedition into the northwest frontier, up the Mississippi valley into the Wisconsin Territory; his experiences of that wild country inspired his lifelong interest in painting romanticized views of the American landscape, evocative of a pristine wilderness barely affected by humankind. As a result of continuing explorations throughout the Alleghenies, he painted to considerable acclaim in Cincinnati from 1841 to about 1856, with interruptions for two trips abroad in 1853 and 1855; by 1857 he was resident in New York, where he had become an Associate in 1860 and a member of the National Academy in 1861. As the Civil War closed his native states to artistic travel, he turned to the less populous parts of New England, especially northern Vermont and New Hampshire; from a corresponding loyalty to the early Hudson River School painters of unspoiled nature, his later work (as in the heightened palette of this painting)-often painted en plein-air-approaches the brilliance of Frederic Church, as well as the calmer concentration of the Barbizon school. He is recognized as one of the most successful American painters of his generation.