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Photographed by Scott Wolff.  Scanned from a slide.  Color corrected by Pat Cagney.
The Roc's Egg
Photographed by Scott Wolff.  Scanned from a slide.  Color corrected by Pat Cagney.
Photographed by Scott Wolff. Scanned from a slide. Color corrected by Pat Cagney.

The Roc's Egg

Artist Elihu Vedder (1836-1923)
CultureAmerican
Date1868
MediumOil on canvas
DimensionsOverall: 7 1/2 x 16 1/8 in. (19.1 x 41 cm)
Overall, Frame: 17 x 26 in. (43.2 x 66 cm)
InscribedSigned and dated lower left: 1868 [with monogram]; Signed and dated on reverse: ; Elihu Vedder; Rome 1868
Credit LineGift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.
Object number71.2369
On View
Chrysler Museum of Art, Gallery 216
DescriptionThis is an oil on canvas painting. The painting depicts the legend of Sinbad in which sailors remove contents from a giant egg. The blue sky fills the background, and the sea is visible in the distance. There is a small ship out on the water. On the sandy shore inbetween the dunes, a group of people gather around a large egg. They have made an opening in part of the eggshell and removed some its contents; they cook the contents on a fire to the right of the egg.

Label TextElihu Vedder American, 1836–1923 The Roc's Egg, 1868 Oil on canvas Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. 71.2369 ProvenanceMartin Brimmer, April 1868; Mrs. Martin Brimmer, Summer 1896; William Sumner Appleton, Boston, Mass.; Dorothy Appleton Weld (or Weed), 1948; Mrs. George Francis Weld, Santa Barbara, Calif.; M.R. Schweitzer, New York, 1967; Collection of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.; Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. to the Chrysler Museum of Art, 1971. Exhibition HistoryOn exhibit at Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Mass., from 1896 - 1904. "Perceptions and Evocations: The Art of Elihu Vedder," National Collection Fine Arts, Washington D.C., October 13, 1978 - February 4, 1979; Brooklyn Museum, N.Y., April 28 - July 8, 1979. "Great American Storytellers Exhibition," The Oklahoma Art Center, Oklahoma City, Okla., November 9, 1979 - January 13, 1980. "Tales from the Easel: American Narrative Paintings from Southeastern Museums, circa 1800-1950," The Columbus Museum, Columbus, Ga., February 8 - April 11, 2004; Tampa Museum of Art, Tampa, Fla., April 25 - July 11, 2004; Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Ky., September 14 - December 12, 2004; El Paso Museum of Art, El Paso, Tex., January 16 - April 10, 2005. Published ReferencesJames Jackson Jarves, _The Art Idea_ (New York, 1864), 246-247. Regina Soria, _Art Quarterly_, Summer 1963, p. 187. Reproduced in _Art News_, April 1967, p. 25. Regina Soria, _Elihu Vedder: American Visionary Artist in Rome_ (Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1970), 36, 143, 283-284, no. 32, plate 8. Joshua C. Taylor, Jane Dillenberger, and Richard Murray, _Perceptions and Evocations: The Art of Elihu Vedder_, exh. cat., National Collection of Fine Arts, Washington, D.C., 1979, 62-64. ISBN: 0874749026, 0874749034 Carter Ratcliff, "The Gender of Mystery: Elihu Vedder," _Art in America_ 67, no. 7 (November 1979): 84-92. _The Chrysler Museum: Selections from the Permanent Collection, Norfolk, Virginia_ (Norfolk: Chrysler Museum, 1982), 84. ISBN: 0940744376 Carolyn Kinder Carr, et al., _Revisiting the White City: American Art at the 1893 World's Fair_ (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1993), 337, 358. ISBN: 0937311014, 0937311022 Paul Staiti. "Elihu Vedder," _Arts Magazine_. Vol. 53, No. 4. 12/1978:p. 17. Laurence A. Marschall, "Books in Brief: Egg Hunt," _The Sciences_ 34, no. 6 (November/December 1994): 45. Robert Storey, "The Mystico-Symbolist Argument of Elihu Vedder's Art," _Studia Mystica_ 17.2 (1996), 95, fig. 2; 110. William Underwood Eiland, "American Narrative Paintings, circa 1800 - 1950," _American Art Review_ XVI, No. 1 (January/February 2004): 138-151. ISSN: 0092-1327 Charles C. Eldredge, _Tales from the Easel: American Narrative Paintings from Southeastern Museums, circa 1800-1950_, exh. cat., Southeastern Art Museum Directors Consortium, Columbus Museum, Ga., 2004, frontispiece (as a detail), 194-195, no. 65. ISBN: 0820325694 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), 86, no. 50. ISBN: 0-940744-71-6
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