작품 상세

Percival Leonard Rosseau American, 1859-1937 Connecticut, Rocks and Pools (Dogs in a Stream), 1926 Signed Rosseau and dated 1926 (ll); inscribed 28 x 34 Price $1,200/"Connecticut" Rocks and Pools/Paul, Captain France/Henna and Sammie on the board backing Oil on canvas 28 3/8 x 34 1/8 inches The peripatetic life of Percival Rosseau traverses two wars, and reads like an adventure novel. Born in Louisiana, he lost nearly his entire family during the Civil War and his family plantation was destroyed by William Tecumseh Sherman during his campaign through Mississippi. According to family lore, Rosseau and his sister were saved by a slave, and were raised in Kentucky by a family friend. After pursuing various careers, as a cowboy, a lumberman, and finally achieving success as an importer, Rosseau left for France at the age of thirty-five, enrolling at the Academie Julian. His submissions of work to the 1903 and 1904 Paris salons met with critical acclaim; the paintings featured wolfhounds and setters. Rosseau and his wife remained in France until 1915, raising hunting dogs in his home in Rolleboise, where Daniel Ridgway Knight also painted. Traveling regularly back to the United States, Rosseau and his wife left France permanently in 1915, settling in Old Lyme, Connecticut, another vibrant artists' community. Rosseau devoted himself entirely to painting pointers and English setters, training his dogs to pose for hours at a time. In America, as seen in the present work, painted at the height of his powers, his palette brightened, and his style loosened. In the present work, he places his dogs in a richly textured, painterly landscape bathed in light. His thirsty hounds - possibly identified here by name on the backing - lap up water, its surface is transformed into a pleasing network of rhythmic trapezoidal forms. Rosseau enjoyed tremendous success, his ability to individuate the dogs in his paintings a consequence of his many years as a hunter and breeder. He reminisced, "A man should paint what he knows best, and I knew more about animals than anything else. I have ran [sic] hounds from childhood and have at my fingertips the thorough knowledge of dogs necessary to picture them faithfully." C Estate of Robert Wechsler