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Welcome to Spaightwood Galleries, Inc.

120 Main Street, Upton MA 01568-6193

For more information or to purchase, please call 1-800-809-3343 or email us at spaightwood@gmail.com

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Last updated: 6/23/2019
Home / Gallery Tour 1 / Old Master Drawings and Prints / Gallery Tour 2 / Artists
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The Romantic Landscape

19th-Century Drawings
19th-Century Landscape Drawings I / 19th-Century LandscapeDrawings II / 19th-Century Genre: Places
19th-Century Portraits / 19th-Century Genre: People

Felix O. C. Darley / Lothar Meggendorfer / Adrian Ludwig Richter
"Sometimes I could cope with the sullen despair that overwhelmed me, but sometimes the whirlwind passions of my soul drove me to seek, by bodily exercise and by change of place, some relief from my intolerable sensations. It was during an access of this kind that I suddenly left my home, and bending my steps towards the near Alpine valleys, sought in the magnificence, the eternity of such scenes, to forget myself and my ephemeral, because human, sorrows. My wanderings were directed towards the valley of Chamounix. I had visited it frequently during my boyhood. Six years had passed since then: I was a wreck, but nought had changed in those savage and enduring scenes.

"I performed the first part of my journey on horseback. I afterwards hired a mule, as the more sure-footed and least liable to receive injury on these rugged roads. The weather was fine; it was about the middle of the month of August, nearly two months after the death of Justine, that miserable epoch from which I dated all my woe. The weight upon my spirit was sensibly lightened as I plunged yet deeper in the ravine of Arve. The immense mountains and precipices that overhung me on every side, the sound of the river raging among the rocks, and the dashing of the waterfalls around spoke of a power mighty as Omnipotence—and I ceased to fear or to bend before any being less almighty than that which had created and ruled the elements, here displayed in their most terrific guise. Still, as I ascended higher, the valley assumed a more magnificent and astonishing character. Ruined castles hanging on the precipices of piny mountains, the impetuous Arve, and cottages every here and there peeping forth from among the trees formed a scene of singular beauty. But it was augmented and rendered sublime by the mighty Alps, whose white and shining pyramids and domes towered above all, as belonging to another earth, the habitations of another race of beings." (Mary Shelley, Frankenstein [1818])

Our selections by artists working in the 19th century includes the ever popular "Anonymous," hard at work in a number of different genres and with results varying from work to work. Some are no more than a travel record, others quick sketches from life, others still, ways of thinking about possible ways to lay out a composition, yet still others finished works of art serving not only as a model for another work but as independent, polished pieces capable of standing on their own. Some of these artists are anonymous because they never had any desire to be thought of as artists; others because they feared that the little they knew about how to draw could serve to help them remember something they wanted to remember but feared that publicly releasing them might bring them unflattering public attention. Others are by professional artists, sometimes continuing a long-time family trade, sometimes immensely successful, sometimes barely known. We have identified works by Hans (Johann) Beckmann, Theophile Chauvel, Heloise Suzanne Colin, Felix O. C. Darley, the Count D'Orsay, E. F. Gehme, Otto Greiner, Emil Kinkelin, Johann Mader, Mauer, Lothar Meggendorfer, Samuel Prout, Adrian Ludwig Richter, Marianne von Rohden, and Adalbert Wolfe.
Marianne von Rohden (German, 1785-1866), View from a grotto. Brush, brown ink, and wash. The artist was a painter. She married the painter Ludwig Hummel, Their daughter, Suzette Hauptman, was also an artist and she too married an artist. Her brother, Johann Marten Rohden was also a painter. This family network suggests the kinds of tightly-knit communities that seem to support artists. Image size: 191x2476mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.
Mauer (German or Austrian, 19th century), Road through the woods. Original ink and wash, c. 1840. Signed and titled in ink lower right. Image size: 318x260mm. A beauiful exploration of the romantic sublime. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.
E. F. Gehme (Austrian, 19th century), Landscape with Mountain Stream. Ink and wash on wove paper, c. 1830. Signed in pencil on the reverse. A very Romantic landscape appealing to the same taste that enjoys the desciptions of the sublime intensity of the mountains in Mary Shelley's romance, Frankenstein, written slightly before this piece. Image size: 242x206mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.
Samuel Prout (English, 1783-1852), ATTRIBUTED, Popobluch / Bottom stone. Pencil on wove paper. An interesting rock formation seems to have caught the eye of the artist resulting in a study showing how the whole assemblage depends upon its base, perhaps with political implications. Richard Lockett, Samuel Prout (London: B.T. Batsford, 1985), containing 35 illustrations in b&w, 12 colored plates, and a Catalogue of 71 illustrations of watercolours and drawings in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London illustrats several similar sketches. Prout was one of the most important watercolor artists in England during the 19th-century. His main interests seems to have been travel (including Germany, Switzerland, and Austria) and painting, particularly church architecture. He wrote at least two books on painting, Hints On Light And Shadow, Composition, Etc. As Applicable To Landscape Painting ( London: Ackermann 1838, with 20 plates by the author) and Sketches At Home And Abroad. Hints On The Acquirement Of Freedom Of Execution And Breadth Of Effect In Landscape Painting. To Which Are Added, Simple Instructions, On The Proper Uses And Application Of Colour (London, 1844, with 44 lithographs by the artist). Shortly after his death he was the subject of an essay by John Ruskin, Notes By Mr Ruskin on Samuel Prout & William Hunt. Image size: 62x120mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.
Samuel Prout (English, 1783-1852), ATTRIBUTED, Grovser Garten. Pencil drawing on wove paper dated 7/22/1860. Image size: 145x85mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.
Theophile Chauvel (French, 1831-1909), Trees. Pencil drawing on chamois paper, 1857. Chauvel was a very successful painter and etcher associated with the Barbizon School in the second half of the 19th century. The drawing has the atelier stamp in the lower right corner indicating that at the time of the artist's death, this work was in his studio and was sold in the official estate sale. Image size: 275x220mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.

Spaightwood Galleries, Inc.

To purchase, call us at 1-800-809-3343 (1-508-529-2511 in Upton MA & vicinity) or send an email to spaightwood@gmail.com.
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For directions and visiting information, please call. We are, of course, always available over the web and by telephone (see above for contact information). Click the following for links to past shows and artists. For a visual tour of the gallery, please click here. For information about Andy Weiner and Sonja Hansard-Weiner, please click here. For a list of special offers currently available, see Specials.

All works are sold with an unconditional guarantee of authenticity (as described in our website listing).

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Visiting hours: Saturday 10:00 am to 5:00 pm and Sunday noon to 6:00 pm and other times by arrangement.
Please call to confirm your visit. Browsers and guests are welcome.