45 free≤an’s fine american & european paintings & sculpture
12/04/11 60 11-2058/2 THOMAS COLE (american 1801-1848) “PART OF THE RUINS OF KENILWORTH CASTLE” Signed ‘T. Cole’ bottom left and inscribed on partial label verso, oil on canvas 16 x 22 1/4 in. (40.6 x 56.5cm) provenance: Charles M. Leupp, New York. Sale of his collection at E. H. Ludlow and Company, November 13, 1860. John Taylor Johnston (Bowman Johnson). The Estate of Gerald M. Bordman, Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania. note: When Thomas Cole was commissioned by Thomas H. Faile to paint an Italian coastal scene, the artist persuaded Faile to accept instead, paintings of a favorite English site. He travelled to England in summer 1841, to paint and sketch Kenilworth Castle, which he described to his wife as ‘…country [that] was rich and beautiful … the ruins went beyond my expectations … the ivy-clad towers, roofless halls, whose floors are covered with green turf and flowers, and cropped by flocks of sheep, over which, through the dismantled windows and ragged loopholes, the sun casts his wandering rays, inspired me with a melancholy pleasure…’ According to Alan Wallach, Cole completed at least four paintings and four drawings at Kenilworth Castle. The paintings are: 1. ‘The Ruins at Kenilworth Castle, England, 1841’, oil on millboard (Juniata College Museum of Art, Huntingdon, PA); 2. ‘Study for Ruins of Kenilworth Castle, England, circa 1842-3’ (Private Collection, location unknown); 3. ‘Ruins of Kennilworth (sic) Castle, England, 1843’ (formerly in the collection of Thomas H. Faile;’ present whereabouts unknown); 4. The present work; 5. (and a fifth work of Kenilworth Castle that is possibly by Cole, Private Collection, Missouri); Alan Wallach has named the present painting ‘Part of the Ruins of Kenilworth Castle, England’, as that was the exact name given to it by Charles M. Leupp, a New York City businessman, financier and art collector, and the painting’s original owner who acquired this painting in 1846. The present painting derives from one of the oil sketches (number 1 and/or 2 above) and a graphite drawing of the subject, entitled ‘Kenilworth Castle, Warwichshire, England, 1841’ (Founders Society Purchase, William H. Murphy Fund). As compared to the extant sketch of Kenilworth Castle (no. 1), the present work is ‘clear and brilliant. Brush strokes are much smaller…Forms are more precisely articulated, contrasts between light and dark subtler and more attenuated. A hundred small details enhance the composition. Sheep graze within the ruined walls of the castle. The castle itself seems larger and more imposing. To achieve this effect, Cole diminishes the relative size of ancillary elements such as the wall, the figure in the foreground, and the birds circling the tower to the left…(with) luminous colors and convincing detail…’ (Alan Wallach, letter of October 12, 2011). We wish to thank Professor Wallach for his kind assistance in cataloguing this lot. The above referenced letter will convey with this lot and is available to view in its entirety on our website. $200,000-300,000