Adam Springfield

"The Battle of Ptolemais, 1191"

1877

Original oil on canvas painting of the Union Army Calvery in the field by the well known American artist Rofus Fairchild Zogbaum. Signed lower left and dated 1885. Condition is good. Craquelure throughout. Paint is stable. Tiny old repair in middle lower sky (see last photo). The painting is housed in its original gilt wood frame. Overall framed measurements are 20.5 by 30.5 inches. Provenance: A Brooklyn, New York estate. Best known for his masterful and meticulous scenes of military engagements and nineteenth-century life in the American West, Rufus Zogbaum’s circle of acquaintances was wide and diverse. He mingled with naval commodores as well as emerging luminaries in American art, such as Norman Rockwell, his fellow illustrator and neighbor in the art colony of New Rochelle, New York. When the British writer Rudyard Kipling presented a copy of his first collection of short stories, Plain Tales from the Hills (1888), to Robley D. Evans, then captain of the USS Indiana, in 1896, the gift included a tipped-in original gouache painting by Zogbaum, whom Kipling cited in a brief poem on the leaf opposite the book’s title page. Kipling’s inscription and the four-quatrain poem begins: “Zogbaum draws with a pencil, / And I do things with a pen.” Born in Charleston, South Carolina, Rufus Fairchild Zogbaum was the son of Ferdinand Zogbaum and Mary Fairchild. The future artist’s father and his paternal uncle, Rufus Fairchild, were partners in a thriving musical instrument manufacturing and import business, first established in 1845 and then relocated to New York in 1853. Although he initially apprenticed in the family office, Rufus enrolled at the Art Students League, where he studied between 1878 and 1879. After pursuing further instruction at Germany’s University of Heidelberg in 1880, he moved on to Paris. During his two-year stay in the French capital, 1880–1882, he was a pupil of Léon Bonnat, a classical realist whose carefully constructed, emotive paintings of peasant life and religious passion reflected academic precepts of the day. The French master’s influence can be seen in Zogbaum’s oeuvre of highly-detailed, heroic paintings. Upon his return to America, Zogbaum found regular work as an illustrator; between 1883 and 1899, he frequently contributed drawings to popular periodicals like the Saturday Evening Post, North American Review, and Harper’s Monthly, where he eventually earned a staff position. In 1884, he began a run of travels to the western territories, notably Montana. The fruits of these visits were seen in the drawings that accompanied magazine articles informed by the ideals of Manifest Destiny, as well as in finished oil paintings of cowboys...

Beautiful, highly detailed original oil on canvas painting of a young maid stopping her work to read a book in the library room. The artist is the Belgian artist, Jean Daniel Stevens...

Original oil on canvas painting of a man and a woman intently peeling potatoes at a table. No visible signature. Old gallery label in German verso that is dated 1934 Condition is go...

Original oil on canvas painting of a bucolic seaside picnic with a mother and her young children. Signed by the artist, F. G. Grust lower left. Condition is very good. The painting is housed in a period style gold leaf frame in fine condition. Overall framed measurements are 31.5 by 41.75 inches. Provenance: A California estate. F. G. Grust was a Dutch painter born in 1889 who was best known for his domestic interior and exterior scenes of a mother with her young children. He is the son of artist Theordor Grust (1859 - 1909), who also painted Dutch genre...

Work on canvas : 61 x 43 cm Golden frame With frame : 70 x 52.7 x 4 cm This 19th-century portrait by an anonymous artist shows an elderly man seated at his desk, engrossed in writing...

Late 19th century California School reclining nude female figure by anonymous 19th Century artist. In the style of William-Adolphe Bouguereau. ...

Academic style figurative oil painting of a handsome football player against a country landscape 'Ready to Play', Painted by Mark Beard as Bruce Sargeant (pseudonym in homage to the...

This painting by Jean-Léon Gérôme entitled La Danse pyrrhique is among the most fascinating compositions ever composed by the Academic master’s hand. Gérôme’s iconic scenes of the East captivated a generation, and this work showcases all of the artist’s unparalleled talents. Set in the Ptolemaic period of Ancient Egypt, its depiction of the ritual Pyrrhic dance is vivid and striking. Beautifully painted and rich with detail, it represents the best of Gérôme’s famed Orientalist scenes. In La Danse pyrrhique, Gérôme gives us a dramatic rendering of this ancient war dance. Greek in origin, it was performed by costumed dancers armed with swords who completed a series of movements set to music pantomiming combat. Homer wrote that Achilles performed this dance in a show of respect and grief at the funeral of his friend, Patroclus. When Julius Caesar introduced it to the Roman Games, its popularity spread across the Roman Empire to include Egypt, where Gérôme’s composition is set. Gérôme visited Egypt for the first time in 1856, and he returned throughout the late 19th century when this work was created. Gérôme’s first-hand familiarity with this setting is evident in this piece, and his visual narrative is unlike any other. His paintings combine the rationalist style of historical paintings and the theatrical...