Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait
(American, 1819–1905)
oil on canvas
38 x 50 inches.
Property from the Estate of a Lady, Nevada
Provenance:
The Artist
Mott & Walters, acquired from the Artist
Harry T. Peters, Orange, Virginia
Sold: Christie's, New York, June 4, 1982, Lot 99
The Congoleum Corporate Collection, Portsmouth, New Hampshire
Sold: Christie's, New York, January 27, 1987, Lot 31
Shearson Lehman Brothers, New York, 1987-93
Richard York Gallery, New York (dated 1851)
Purchased from the above by the present owner, 1993
Exhibited:
New York, Berry-Hill Galleries, American Paintings VI, 1990, pp. 52-53, illus.
Literature:
Listed as no. 35 in Tait's register: 'Duck Shootings. 50 x 38. Mott & Walters ($200.00)'
Warder H. Cadbury, Henry F. Marsh, Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait: Artist in the Adirondacks, Newark, New Jersey, 1986, p. 138, no. 57.17
F. Turner Reuter, Jr., Animal & Sporting Artists in America, Middleburg, Virginia, 2008, p. 516, illus.
Lot note:
One of the foremost animal and sporting scene painters of nineteenth-century America, Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait was born in Liverpool, England and trained in Manchester as a lithographer and illustrator of popular magazines. In 1850, he immigrated to New York with his young family. At this time, sporting pursuits had become commonplace for American outdoorsmen, as the popularization of hunting and fishing was advanced through publications and the extension of railroad lines. An avid sportsman himself, Tait capitalized on this growing cultural phenomenon to engage the public’s enthusiasm for outdoor recreation. These factors helped him "to secure with remarkable speed his reputation as a professional painter" (The Adirondack Museum, A.F. Tait: Artist in the Adirondacks, exhibition catalogue, Blue Mountain Lake, New York, 1974, p. 9).
Duck Shooting, 1857, is one of Tait's largest and most ambitious paintings. The subject matter was probably influenced by the New Jersey wetlands, which Tait began visiting at the prompting of his friend and fellow artist, William Ranney. Ranney was an influential mentor to the artist during the 1850s and accompanied Tait on hunting trips. "At the same time, Ranney and Tait conveyed in their paintings little of the grandeur of nature in the sublime sense such as it is found in the landscapes of Thomas Cole and other artists touch by romanticism. And both applied the genre formula of stressing the incidental" (W.H. Cadbury and H.F. Marsh,
Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait: Artist in the Adirondacks, Newark, Delaware, 1986, p. 29). It is this emphasis on detail and interest in the narrative, rather than solely on the surrounding landscape, that distinguished Tait's work and accounts for his enduring popularity.
In the present composition, the gentleman on the right is thought to be James Blackwell Blossom, a good friend of the artist's and a frequent companion on his hunting trips. Blossom and his brother, Josiah, who may be the second figure, were the owners of a prosperous naval store business in New York. Tait depicted James again in a later painting, Going Out: Deer Hunting in the Adirondacks, 1862, now in the collection of The Adirondacks Experience, Blue Mountain Lake, New York. The artist had previously painted the present scene in 1853 at a smaller scale and titled Wild Duck Shooting: A Good Day’s Sport, which was later published as a hand-colored lithograph by N. Currier. The earlier painting depicts the Clark brothers, who were prominent Tammany politicians. Tait frequently made copies of his own work and may have painted the 1857 composition because of the scene’s popularity. The work was originally owned by Harry T. Peters, author of the definitive book on Currier & Ives prints and it was one of several paintings by Tait in the author's collection. Tait’s passion for sport and wildlife allowed him to imbue his works with telling and accurate details that continue to appeal today to the American public.
