LOT DETAILS

Materials:

oil on linen canvas

Measurements:

27.99 in. (71.10 cm.) (height) by 47.99 in. (121.90 cm.) (width)

Markings:

Signed and dated in oil, lower left

Provenance:

Harry DeGrummond, Salado, Texas; private collection, Texas (1980); thence by descent to the current owner, private collection, Oklahoma This painting was found in the contents of Twelve Oaks, a historic two-story stone mansion in Salado, Texas, when it was purchased with the DeGrummond estate in 1980 Twelve Oaks was built in 1867 by Dr Benjamin McKie (1825 - 1883), and restored by Harry DeGrummond in the 1930s The Greek-Revival mansion is on the National Register of Historic Places This impressive scene of a herd of cows in a Rhode Island landscape is a large and significant mid-career painting by Edward Mitchell Bannister The pastoral scene is rendered in rich harmonious tonalities captured in the light at dawn The herdsman at the center of the horizon brings the viewer into a composition that shows Bannister's affinities with the Barbizon masters Jean-François Millet and Camille Corot Upon closer inspection, Bannister's impastoed brush strokes and palette knife application in the foreground also show the influence of Gustave Courbet Born and raised in Canada, where the British had abolished slavery, Edward Bannister was able to demonstrate and develop his talent at a young age Working as a seaman, the young man travelled the Northeastern coast until he found work in the arts hand-coloring daguerreotypes in New York In the early 1850s, Bannister established himself as a young regionalist painter in Boston, one of its first African-American artists