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Lot Essay
The moon-over-clouds theme was a favorite of La Farge’s. What he called “broken jewel work,” forming the complex border and crescent moon in the panel, was a most distinctive technique. Formed of myriad pieces of fractured cast jewels, each one wrapped in lead came and soldered together, the technique imitates tesserae in Greco-Roman mosaics. La Farge used this method often in this early period, culminating with the background of the enormous memorial window to Helen Angier Ames, The Angel of Help, in the Church of the Unity, North Easton, MA (completed in 1887).
The window offered here was owned by Moritz Bernard Philipp of New York, one of La Farge’s attorneys. The artist paid the lawyer in artwork, including this window. It was exhibited in London in 1889, where it was called a “Pseudo-Japanese Design.” The Saturday Review called it “gorgeous, and of an amazing boldness in design,” while The Atheneum dubbed it “super-splendid.” It might have been part of the artist’s contribution to the International Exposition in Paris the same year (there is no complete list of what he sent), at which he was awarded the Medal of the Legion of Honor as the creator of le verre Americain.
There are at least four known examples of the Moon over Clouds, all made in 1881. A version, with red and green maple leaves, was exhibited in John La Farge and the Recovery of the Sacred at the McMullen Museum, Boston College, 2015. Another, made for the New York home of stockbroker John A. Zerega, has two birds in addition to the leafy branch. Several watercolor sketches for this group of windows also exist.
- Julie L. Sloan
The window offered here was owned by Moritz Bernard Philipp of New York, one of La Farge’s attorneys. The artist paid the lawyer in artwork, including this window. It was exhibited in London in 1889, where it was called a “Pseudo-Japanese Design.” The Saturday Review called it “gorgeous, and of an amazing boldness in design,” while The Atheneum dubbed it “super-splendid.” It might have been part of the artist’s contribution to the International Exposition in Paris the same year (there is no complete list of what he sent), at which he was awarded the Medal of the Legion of Honor as the creator of le verre Americain.
There are at least four known examples of the Moon over Clouds, all made in 1881. A version, with red and green maple leaves, was exhibited in John La Farge and the Recovery of the Sacred at the McMullen Museum, Boston College, 2015. Another, made for the New York home of stockbroker John A. Zerega, has two birds in addition to the leafy branch. Several watercolor sketches for this group of windows also exist.
- Julie L. Sloan