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Lot Essay
This work will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné being prepared by John Fowler.
According to Cynthia Seibels, the present work is one of six known large plantation scenes by William Aiken Walker, which represent the most monumental and impressive paintings of his career. Commissioned by Colonel Stephen Minot Weld (1842-1920), a cotton mill owner and broker, Big B Cotton Plantation illustrates each stage of cotton production on an Old South plantation. In the fields, women are seen filling burlap sacks, which were then transferred to the large baskets atop some of the men's shoulders. The blue wagon at right carries these baskets to the gin house, visible in the left background with its tall smokestack, where the cotton would be seeded, compressed and bound into bales. These bales were then carried in carriages, as seen in the left foreground, to the steamboat that would carry them to New Orleans, and from there to their Northern or foreign buyers. In the right background, the painting also depicts the compound where the plantation owner lived: the three-story 'big house' with its icehouse, smokehouse and stable.
In addition to this detailed representation of the processes and architecture of a cotton farm, Big B Cotton Plantation also demonstrates Walker's artistic aptitude in capturing the individuality of each of the figures of the scene as well as the unique natural landscape of the American South. As Seibels explains, "As closely as he observed the human activity, Walker also described the natural environment and the physical plant of the plantation...The branches and leaves of each cotton plant edging the road are precisely drawn and carefully covered. Walker here built up paint on the canvas as a means of rendering texture. Loading his brush with white paint, he would apply the tip of it to the canvas, leaving a thick, ridged mark that convincingly portrays the deep, soft mass of a cotton boll. His sky, by contrast, is thinly painted...The clouds, also laid down with a loose hand, seem to swirl and dash across the canvas. The scene has great depth, thanks to Walker's competent handling of the principle of vanishing point perspective. The rows of cotton, the road perpendicular to the picture plane, and the angle at which the houses are aligned to the road converge the eye to a point just to the right of center, where the plantation gate opens onto the loading area and, as implied by the waiting steamboat, the world market beyond." (The Sunny South: The Life and Art of William Aiken Walker, Spartanburg, South Carolina, 1995, p. 96)
According to Cynthia Seibels, the present work is one of six known large plantation scenes by William Aiken Walker, which represent the most monumental and impressive paintings of his career. Commissioned by Colonel Stephen Minot Weld (1842-1920), a cotton mill owner and broker, Big B Cotton Plantation illustrates each stage of cotton production on an Old South plantation. In the fields, women are seen filling burlap sacks, which were then transferred to the large baskets atop some of the men's shoulders. The blue wagon at right carries these baskets to the gin house, visible in the left background with its tall smokestack, where the cotton would be seeded, compressed and bound into bales. These bales were then carried in carriages, as seen in the left foreground, to the steamboat that would carry them to New Orleans, and from there to their Northern or foreign buyers. In the right background, the painting also depicts the compound where the plantation owner lived: the three-story 'big house' with its icehouse, smokehouse and stable.
In addition to this detailed representation of the processes and architecture of a cotton farm, Big B Cotton Plantation also demonstrates Walker's artistic aptitude in capturing the individuality of each of the figures of the scene as well as the unique natural landscape of the American South. As Seibels explains, "As closely as he observed the human activity, Walker also described the natural environment and the physical plant of the plantation...The branches and leaves of each cotton plant edging the road are precisely drawn and carefully covered. Walker here built up paint on the canvas as a means of rendering texture. Loading his brush with white paint, he would apply the tip of it to the canvas, leaving a thick, ridged mark that convincingly portrays the deep, soft mass of a cotton boll. His sky, by contrast, is thinly painted...The clouds, also laid down with a loose hand, seem to swirl and dash across the canvas. The scene has great depth, thanks to Walker's competent handling of the principle of vanishing point perspective. The rows of cotton, the road perpendicular to the picture plane, and the angle at which the houses are aligned to the road converge the eye to a point just to the right of center, where the plantation gate opens onto the loading area and, as implied by the waiting steamboat, the world market beyond." (The Sunny South: The Life and Art of William Aiken Walker, Spartanburg, South Carolina, 1995, p. 96)