Otto Grundmann (1844-1890)

Interior at the Mountains

Details

Otto Grundmann (1844-1890)
Interior at the Mountains
signed 'Otto Grundmann/Whitefield' (lower right)
oil on canvas
18¼ x 27 in. (46.4 x 68.6 cm.)
Painted in 1878.

Provenance

Rev. R.C. Waterston.
Mary N. Richardson, by descent.
Private collection, 1987.
Christie's, New York, 29 November 2007, lot 168.
Acquired by the present owner from the above.

Literature

R.L. McGrath, B.J. MacAdam, A Sweet Foretaste of Heaven: Artists in the White Mountains, Hanover, New Hampshire, 1988, pp. 18-19, fig. 9, illustrated.
A.E. Berman, "The Other Side of the Fence," Art & Auction, March 1990, p. 180, illustrated.
W.H. Truettner, R.B. Stein, Picturing Old New England: Image and Memory, exhibition catalogue, New Haven, Connecticut, 1999, pp. 26-27, 211, no. 17, illustrated.
R.L. McGrath, Gods in Granite: The Art of the White Mountains of New Hampshire, Syracuse, New York, 2001, pp. 161-62, pl. 12, illustrated.
R.B. Stein, "Searching for Jacob's Ladder," Colby Quarterly, vol. 39, no. 1, March 2003, pp. 34-54, 50-52, figs. 2, 5, illustrated.

Exhibited

Boston, Massachusetts, Museum of Fine Arts, Exhibition of Contemporary Art, April 22-May 24, 1879, no. 467.
Washington, D.C., National Museum of American Art, Picturing Old New England: Image and Memory, April 2-August 22, 1999, no. 16.

Lot Essay

In 1876 Otto Grundmann was appointed the head of the School of Drawing and Painting at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, prompting him to leave his native Europe where he had experienced much success as a painter. He quickly established himself in America, as a prominent portraitist whose sitters included Benjamin Franklin.

Grundmann spent the summer of 1878 at the home of his friends, Reverend and Mrs. R.C. Waterston, in Whitefield, New Hampshire, where he painted Interior at the Mountains. The Waterstons had remodeled the original farmhouse into an Italianate summer cottage, the details of which Grundmann skillfully captures. The vast panorama visible through the bay window demonstrates the artist's diversity as a painter and enhances the intimacy of the scene.

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