CONRAD WISE CHAPMAN (American, 1842-1910). The Family Dog, 1860. Oil on board laid on board. 9 x 14 inches (22.9 x 35.6 ...

Description

CONRAD WISE CHAPMAN (American, 1842-1910)
The Family Dog, 1860
Oil on board laid on board
9 x 14 inches (22.9 x 35.6 cm)
Inscribed and dated lower left: Roma 1860

THE JEAN AND GRAHAM DEVOE WILLIFORD CHARITABLE TRUST

PROVENANCE:
Gallery Mayo, Richmond, VA (label verso)

EXHIBITED:
Gallery Mayo, Richmond, VA, "John Gadsby Chapman and Sons: Rediscovered Works," Sept. 23 - Oct. 31, 1983.

Conrad Wise Chapman is unique among Civil War artists: he painted and sketched while on duty as a Confederate soldier who served in three theaters of the war.
Conrad's father, artist and teacher, John Gadsby Chapman, moved his family from the U.S. to Italy in 1850. In 1861, the year after he painted this portrait of the family dog in Rome, Conrad returned to enlist in the Confederate Army. He served for a year in the West and was wounded at Shiloh. Following his recovery, he was transferred to a regiment in Virginia, and a year later he went to Charleston, where he was ordered by General Pierre G. T. Beauregard to create a pictorial record of the Confederate Army's defense of Charleston harbor. Chapman completed a series of 31 paintings of Charleston as well as many other Civil War-related pictures familiar to historians. In 1867 he wrote his memoirs of his days as a soldier, a record that contains vivid descriptions of camp life, his first taste of battle, and his weeks in Confederate hospitals. After the war, Chapman spent eighteen months in Mexico, becoming the first American artist to paint that country's landscape. He lived the remainder of his life in Europe, Mexico, and the United States.


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