WILLIAM STANLEY HASELTINE (American, 1835-1900). Saint-Malo, Brittany, circa 1868. Oil on canvas. 13-1/4 x 22-1/4 inches...

Description

WILLIAM STANLEY HASELTINE (American, 1835-1900)
Saint-Malo, Brittany, circa 1868
Oil on canvas
13-1/4 x 22-1/4 inches (33.7 x 56.5 cm)



PROVENANCE:
Victor Spark, New York, circa 1964;
Richard York Gallery, New York.

EXHIBITED:
California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, California, circa 1964;
Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, Alabama;
The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, San Francisco, California, "Expressions of Place: The Art of William Stanley Haseltine," traveling exhibition, June 20- September 20, 1992;
Brandywine River Museum, Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, January 20- April 19, 1993 (labels verso).

Philadelphia-born painter William Stanley Haseltine was one of the 19th century's most celebrated expatriate landscapists. After attending the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard, he returned to Philadelphia to train with the German landscape painter Paul Weber, whom he accompanied to Düsseldorf. From 1854-1858 he studied at the artists' colony there, and developed the meticulous technique which became a hallmark of his style. A 1856 sketching trip along the Rhine to the Roman Campagna in the company of painters Albert Bierstadt, Emanuel Leutze, and Worthington Whittredge introduced him to the subject which brought him such critical favor in Europe and in the United State--his romantic evocations of Italy's historic ruins and peaceful coastlines.

This serene and vivid painting of rocky headlands jutting into an aqua sea with sailboats and a church spire on the horizon was once thought to depict the coast of Nahant, Massachusetts-a landscape Haseltine occasionally painted. More recent scholarship has determined that this shoreline is in France, a depiction of the walled port city of Saint-Malo in Brittany, situated on the English Channel. Close inspection of the details on the horizon disclose the presence of the Saint-Malo fortifications as well as the Cathedral of St. Vincent's distinctive spire. Haseltine painted this work during the three-year period he was studying in Paris, between 1866 and 1868.


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