Morgan Martin
Head of Department
PROPERTY FROM THE ESTATE OF JOHN H. GARZOLI
Lot 67
Thomas Hill(1829-1908)Picnic Near Mount Chocorua 30 x 42 in. (76.2 x 106.7 cm.)
18 November 2021, 14:00 EST
New YorkSold for US$250,312.50 inc. premium
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Thomas Hill (1829-1908)
Picnic Near Mount Chocorua
signed 'T. Hill.' (lower right)
oil on canvas
30 x 42 in. (76.2 x 106.7 cm.)
Painted circa 1872.
signed 'T. Hill.' (lower right)
oil on canvas
30 x 42 in. (76.2 x 106.7 cm.)
Painted circa 1872.
Footnotes
Provenance
The artist.
John H. Garzoli, Garzoli Gallery, San Francisco, California.
Estate of the above.
Exhibited
San Francisco, California, Twelfth Industrial Exhibition of the Mechanics Institute, August-September 1877. (as The Pic-Nic)
Literature
B. Hjalmarson, "Thomas Hill," The Magazine Antiques, November 1984, pl. VII, illustrated.
M. Simpson, S. Mills, J. Saville, The American Canvas: Paintings from the Collection of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, San Francisco, California, 1989, p. 238.
In this magnificent scene of Mount Chocorua from the White Mountains, Hill picks up and extends the motif of The Pic-Nic Party (1846) by Thomas Cole, one of his most celebrated works, currently in the Brooklyn Museum. It is likewise related to another painting by Hill from the same year in the collection of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Fishing Party in the Mountains (1872). Hill produced these works as well as his important painting, Crawford Notch, now in the New Hampshire Historical Society, just before returning to California for good in late 1872. As such, these mark the apotheosis of his Hudson River School apprenticeship.
As Birgitta Hjalmarson notes in The Magazine Antiques, this work in some respects demarcates both Hill's fidelity to and transcendence of the Hudson River School tradition he trained under and inherited, "Hill's own abilities went far beyond these spectacular views, for he was also a master of smaller works that were considered in his own day "such gems as only the most accomplished artist with great feeling and honesty of method can execute." Some were reminiscences of summers spent in Virgil Williams' cabin in the Sonoma valley— dreamy pastoral scenes of sunny openness and level valleys. Some, painted with spontaneous, almost casual intimacy, captured moments among friends in New England — a charming picnic scene or a merry fishing party more set on having fun than catching fish... "The rapidity with which Hill manipulates color," wrote one critic, "enables him to complete a sketch while an ordinary artist is surveying the scene and drawing the outlines," making it possible for Hill to "seize the opportunity offered by brilliant and short-lived effects."(Birgitta Hjalmarson, "Thomas Hill," The Magazine Antiques, November 1984, 1205-6)
Indeed, one can view the vivacious impressionistic rapidity observed in the details of this intricate scene, in which he captures a leisurely crowd playing about in boats and tents, a couple on a stroll, a baby in a pram, a grandmother pulling an infant in a wagon, and a repast on the lawn, all captured in light deft brushstrokes.
The painting was in Hill's personal collection when placed on display at the Mechanics Institute Exhibition in San Francisco in 1877.
