Lilla Cabot Perry Figurative Paintings

Lilla Cabot Perry (1848 - 1933) Gentleman at a Piano, 1933 Oil on canvas 45 1/2 x 54 inches Signed lower left Provenance: Boston Educational Institution, Massachusetts Skinner Boston, Fine Art Online, May 9, 2016, Lot 1055 Edward Ballantine was a distinguised pianist and professor of music at Harvard College in Cambridge, Ma. This painting was painted in Lilla Cabot Perrys studio space in Boston. One can see the painting of the Koi and the Japanese screen to the left, two props that Perry used in many of the paintings following her trips to Japan. Japonisme was very evident in many of her works. Born in Boston, Lilla Perry was a key person, along with Mary Cassatt, in bringing French Impressionism* to the United States from France. For many years, she lectured, wrote, and encouraged American patronage of the style. She was also the artist most closely involved with the Guild of Boston Artists, which opened its galleries in 1914 to promote accomplished painters and sculptors. She served on the board as the first secretary and worked hard to cultivate persons for financial backing. Perry had prominent Boston social credentials that included the Cabot and Lowell families. Her father was a distinguished surgeon; and her husband's great uncle, Commodore Matthew Perry, opened Japan to the world in 1853. In 1874, she married Professor Thomas Sergeant Perry, a professor of 18th-century literature, and their home became a gathering place for many Boston intellectuals including Henry James, William Dean Howells, and her brother-in-law, painter John LaFarge. She had elite private schooling and began her art studies with Robert Vonnoh and Dennis Bunker at the Cowles School in Boston. Having first traveled to Europe with her family in 1887, she studied in France privately with Alfred Stevens and at the Julian and Colarossi Academies. She also exhibited at the salons and expositions and in 1889, attended Claude Monet...