American Folk Art Sport Painting

American Folk Art Sport Painting

FR184. American Folk Art sport painting, oil on wooden board, depicting a Brittany spaniel with mallard, mounted in a chamfered mitered figured cherry wooden frame.

The painting is rendered from a naive, close-up two-dimensional perspective, featuring the head and shoulders of a retriever dog as he holding a duck held lifeless in his mouth, sitting amongst thick green and amber shaded grasses rising into a pale-blue sky streaked with white clouds. The viewer is drawn to the dog his well-formed head, large attentive dark-brown eyes, black nose, long floppy ears and a rich dark-brown fur coat that is prominently marked by a white striped head and chest. The duck serves a dual purpose in the painting, acting as a foil for the shape of the dog and unifying the palate. First, reinforcing the shape of the dog, the duck head and neck follow the line of the chest on the dog, and one curved wing unfolds parallel below the nose of the dog. Second, bringing together the three primary colors in the painting, the white body and brown neck of the duck recall the coloring of the dog, and the dark blue-green head, wing-tips and tails of the bird reprise the shading of the grasses.

Dating is from the late 19th Century to the early 20th Century. Good condition. The image is rendered on a thin wooden board, re-backed with modern poster-board. The cherry frame is backed with mortised yellow-pine. The image measures 14 ¾" x 17"; the frame measures 19 ¾" x 22". Ex: the collection of the late Margaret “Maggie” and Norwyn Rowe of Washington D. C. $675.00
Share by: