AMER WINTER 2016
The live portion of this session begins on Wednesday, February 3, 2016.
MARTIN JOHNSON HEADE (American, 1819-1904) ROMAN NEWSBOYS II, 1849Oil on canvas
Housed in a molded wood gilt antique frame with title & artist plaque
Unsigned
Note: The second version of a similar work of the same title painted in Rome in 1848 now hangs in the Toledo Museum of Art, this painting appears as #17 on page 202 in 'The Life and Work of Martin Johnson Heade, A Critical Analysis and Catalogue Raisonne' by Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr., Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2000, along with a comparison of the two versions. Painting depicts two young tattered boys hawking broadsheets marked 'Roma', one on the left wearing a paper hat marked Pius IX, one on the right perched atop a post, both looking to the left, looming shadows include a silhouette of a cross, and a silhouette of a Cardinal's hat on the lower left.
REFERENCE: Included in the exhibition "The Lure of Italy American Artists and The Italian Experience, 1760-1914" Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Sept. 16 - Dec. 13, 1992; The Cleveland Museum of Art Feb 3 - April 11, 1993; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston May 23 - Aug 8, 1993.
The restoration was under the supervision of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. A rare example of a genre scene by this American Master, the two versions of this appear to be the only genre scenes that have survived. The first version was much more political, painted during the Unification struggle and the ouster of the Pope from Rome which occurred while Heade was in Italy; this version was done after the suppression of the revolt and the Pope's return, thus the presence of the cross, his name, the Cardinal's cap, and the removal of political graffiti and broadsides from the wall, the change from a Liberty cap to a sailor's cap on the boy on the right, the papers being offered changed from revolutionary tracts to 'Roma'. SIZE: 29-1/4" x 24-1/2". Overall: 35-1/2" x 31" PROVENANCE: Thomaston Place Auctions Aug. 2008; A private Maine/Texas collection. CONDITION: Very good, lined on new stretcher, some restoration with inpainting 50012-13 WAG (200,000-400,000)