1892 Edward W. Redfield "A Winter Evening" Oil Painting
GUEST:
I inherited it from my husband's family. I believe it was purchased in 1913. Edward Redfield painted it.
APPRAISER:
Yes.
GUEST:
I believe he is from Pennsylvania. There is a museum in New Hope that has a lot of his work. I think most of the works in the museum may be things that he painted in America.
APPRAISER:
And of course, he was considered to be the founder of the Pennsylvania impressionists, along with William Lathrop, who were based around the New Hope area. And Redfield studied in Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania Academy, and latterly taught there, as did many of the other Pennsylvania impressionists. But this is from the early part of his career. This was painted when he was in France, as I think you can probably see down here. We can see the date, which is 1892. Now, in 1889 he went to Paris for the first time. And he traveled there with another Pennsylvanian academician, Robert Henri, who went on to be part of the Ashcan School. And it was a busy period of time for Redfield. It was his formative years. 1892, when this was painted, was the date of his first solo exhibition in the United States. And that was held in Boston, and he came back to the States for that. And as though he wasn't busy enough, the following year from that, in 1893, he married his wife. And she was a French innkeeper's daughter. I notice in the painting here there's actually... it looks like an inn sign, so maybe she lived here at some point, but who knows? And of course, the medium is oil paint. With this work, the important thing to remember... and whenever we're appraising paintings, there are various things that we need to take into consideration. Obviously things like condition, the subject, the artist, of course, the size. And in this case, with Redfield, the period. Well, at auction at the moment, I feel that a fair estimate would probably be in the $25,000 to $40,000 for a piece like this. Bear in mind the later ones, if they're done in Pennsylvania, it's his signature heavy impasto, bright palette, snow scene, it's got all the bells and whistles that people want in Redfield, you're looking at easily into six figures, and well into six figures.
GUEST:
Wow.
APPRAISER:
So it might have been nicer if it had been a little bit later, but this is a very nice example of his early style. Later on, when he wasn't able to paint anymore, he was getting quite old, he started to do hooked rugs, and he would also paint furniture.
GUEST:
Really?
APPRAISER:
So he was better known for that. Yeah, he stopped doing paintings. He was a very harsh critic of his own work. He tended to burn a lot of works if he didn't like them. So you should be quite glad that he actually obviously thought well enough of this one to keep it.
GUEST:
Oh, well, that's wonderful that he did.
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