4x5 transparency scanned on Hasselblad Flextight X1 by Ed Pollard-2012.

Harvest Scene

Artist Daniel Ridgway Knight (American, 1839 - 1924)

CultureAmerican

Date1875

MediumOil on canvas

Dimensions40 × 59 1/2 in. (101.6 × 151.1 cm)
Overall, Frame: 49 1/4 × 69 1/4 × 4 3/8 in. (125.1 × 175.9 × 11.1 cm)

InscribedSigned and dated lower right: ; D. R. Knight; Paris 1875

Credit LineGift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.

Object number71.2118

Collections

American Art before 1945

On View

Chrysler Museum of Art, Gallery 102

DescriptionThis oil on canvas painting depicts a group of peasants in the midst of harvest who have temporarily laid down their scythes and rakes and have gathered in a cleared area to take their midday meal.

Label TextDaniel Ridgway Knight American, 1839–1924 Harvest Scene, 1875 Oil on canvas Daniel Ridway Knight came from Philadelphia, but trained as an artist in France and settled there after the Civil War. He exhibited this work at the official French Salon in 1875. Knight grew so obsessed with capturing the quality of natural light that he built a studio of glass. Rather than showing peasants straining at their tasks, he shows the cheery and gaily dressed family contentedly taking its noonday meal. Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. 71.2118 ProvenanceThe artist, 1876; Anthony Joseph Drexel, Jr.; Newhouse Galleries, New York, 1963; Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.; Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. to The Chrysler Museum, 1971. Exhibition HistorySalon, Paris, 1876, no. 1125. National Academy of Design, New York, 1877, no. 450. "Three Hundred Years of American Art in the Chrysler Museum," Chrysler Museum at Norfolk, Va., March 1 - July 4, 1976. "Hidden Treasures," The Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, Va., November 20, 1985 - January 5, 1986. "A Pastoral Legacy: Paintings and Drawings by the American Artists Ridgway Knight and Aston Knight," The Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Memphis, Tenn., January 14 - February 28, 1990. "Redefining Genre: French and American Painting 1850-1900," Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Memphis, Tenn., September 24 - December 17, 1995; Society of the Four Arts, Palm Beach, Fla., January 5 - February 4, 1996; Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, Calif., February 24 - April 21, 1996. "Van Gogh's Sheaves of Wheat," Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Texas, October 22, 2006 - January 7, 2007 "Reopening of the Joan P. Brock Galleries," Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Va., Opening in March of 2008."The Agrarian Ideal: Monet, van Gogh, Homer," Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA, October 7, 2016 - January 8, 2017.Published ReferencesLucy H. Hooper, "Art In Paris," _The Art Journal_ 2 (1876): 60. "The Academy Exhibition," _The Art Journal_ 3 (1877): 155. Dennis R. Anderson, _Three Hundred Years of American Art in the Chrysler Museum_, exh. cat., Norfolk, Va., 1975, 157. Lois Marie Fink, "American Participation In The Paris Salons, 1870-1900," _Saloni, Gallerie, Musei e Loro Influenza Sullo Sviluppo dell'Arte del Secoli XIX E XX_ 7 (1980): 91, fig. 51. Jefferson C. Harrison,. "Collection Spotlight - 'Peasants Lunching in a Field'," _The Chrysler Museum Bulletin_ 17 (November 1987): not paged. Pamela Beecher, _A Pastoral Legacy: Paintings and Drawings by the American Artists Ridgway Knight and Aston Knight_, exh. cat., Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., 1989, 19, fig. 1. Lois Marie Fink, _American Art at the Nineteenth-Century Paris Salons_, exh. cat., National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., 1990, 151, plate 25. Jefferson C. Harrison, _The Chrysler Museum Handbook of the European and American Collections: Selected Paintings, Sculpture and Drawings_ (Norfolk: The Chrysler Museum, 1991), 130-131, no. 104. Gabriel Weisberg, _Beyond Impressionism: The Naturalist Impulse_ (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1992), 157-158. Gabriel P. Weisberg, _Redefining Genre: French and American Painting 1850-1900_, exh. cat., The Trust for Museum Exhibitions, Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Memphis, Tenn., 1995, 70, 105, no. 46. Martha N. Hagood and Jefferson C. Harrison, _American Art at the Chrysler Museum: Selected Paintings, Sculpture, and Drawings_ (Norfolk, Va.: Chrysler Museum of Art, 2005), 102-103, no. 61. Dorothy Kosinski and Bradley Fratello, _Van Gogh's Sheaves of Wheat_, exh. cat., Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Texas, 2006, 78. Eliza E. Rathbone, et. al., _Van Gogh Repetitions_ (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013) 116, fig. 82. Marnin Young, "The Motionless Look of a Painting: Jules Bastien-Lepage, Les Foins, and the End of Realism," _Art History_ 37 (2014): 53. Marnin Young _Realism in the Age of Impressionism: Painting and the Politics of Time_ (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015) 30, fig. 16.