GEORGE INNESS (American, 1825-1894)
Valley Near Perugia, 1871
Oil on canvas
24-1/4 x 19 inches (61.6 x 48.3 cm)
Signed lower right: G. Inness

PROVENANCE:
The artist;
Mrs. George (Elizabeth Hart) Inness (the artist's wife);
Fifth Avenue Art Gallery, Inness Executor's Sale, February 11-13, 1904, cat. no. 117;
Thomas E.H. Curtis, New York City, 1904;
Anderson Auction Galleries, November 14, 1918, cat. no. 60 (Curtis Sale);
Henry Schultheis, New York;
Private collection, circa 1920s;
By descent in the family;
Private collection, New York.

LITERATURE:
L. Ireland, The Works of George Inness: An Illustrated Catalogue Raisonné, Austin, 1965, pp. 97-8, no. 388, illus.
M. Quick, George Inness - A Catalogue Raisonné, New Brunswick, 2007, vol. I, p. 386, no. 405, illus.

In 1870 George Inness returned to Italy to paint the countryside for the American market, and on this occasion stayed for four years. The mid-career Italian paintings he produced during this extended trip offer more daring color effects and pictorial compositions than his earlier landscapes. The tighter landscapes give way to a broader handling that evokes a greater sense of atmosphere and light, and a much more subjective response to nature. Valley Near Perugia depicts a view of the Tiber valley from the hills east of Perugia. The canvas is suffused with a warm, atmospheric light which softly illuminates the features of the Italian countryside against an azure blue sky.

Valley Near Perugia bears an old inscription reading "Delaware Valley" and was catalogued as such, and dated to circa 1871 by Leroy Ireland in The Works of George Inness (Austin, 1965, pp. 97-98, no. 388, ill.). More recent scholarship by Michael Quick rightly relates the painting to an 1872 Inness entitled Near Perugia (Ireland, Works, pp. 151-152, no. 619, illustrated) and an 1873 painting The Perugian Valley, inscribed "Rome" (Ireland, Works, pp. 156-157, no. 641).

Inness, George: . American painter, 1825-1894

Condition Report*:

Relined and revarnished canvas; under UV examination, minor in-painting in top left, upper right, and lower right corners, several dots of in-painting in upper left sky, scattered dots in brown foliage of lower left quadrant, and in brown foliage behind tree trunks of lower right quadrant; otherwise very good condition.

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