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Arthur Bowen Davies American, 1863-1928 The Horn Players Stamped thrice with a Collection/A.B. Davies/... on the reverse Oil on canvas 10 5/8 x 9 1/8 inches Provenance: The artist Germaine Montereau, Beaugency, France, by 1928 Descent in the family to the present Exhibited: Nashville, Tennessee, Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Life's Pleasures: The Ashcan Artists' Brush with Leisure, 1895-1925, Aug. 2-Oct. 28, 2007; traveled to: New York Historical Society, Nov. 18, 2007-Feb. 10, 2008; Detroit Institute of Arts, Mar. 2-May 25, 2008, p. 129 color illus. New York, Spanierman Gallery, LLC, Arthur B. Davies: Painter, Poet, Romancer & Mystic, Mar. 29-Apr. 28, 2012 Literature: Tranquil America: A Century of Painting, 1840-1940, (Spanierman Gallery, LLC: New York, 2000), pl. 79, color illus. James W. Tottis et al. Life's Pleasures: The Ashcan Artists' Brush with Leisure, 1895-1925. Exh. cat. New York: Merrell, 2007, p. 129 color illus. (cat. 15) Lisa N. Peters, Arthur B. Davies: Painter, Poet, Romancer & Mystic, online catalogue (New York: Spanierman Gallery, 2012), 2-3 color illus. Probably painted about 1893, The Horn Players dates from a time when Davies was adhering closely to the style of Albert Pinkham Ryder. Typical of the period is the painting's dark palette and the relatively thin application of the pigment, which reveals the canvas support. The painting was probably among the oils inspired by the operas of Richard Wagner, a focus for Davies after attending a performance of Tristan and Isolde. Music in general, was also a stimulus for Davies. In 1893, he avidly read George Moore's Modern Painting, no doubt finding himself drawn to Moore's comment: "just as the musician obtains richness and novelty of expression by means of a distribution of sound through the instruments of the orchestra, so does the painter obtain depth and richness through a judicious distribution of values." Davies, himself, would state similarly in 1895: "painting is like music, with contrast of harmony and syncopated time; it can no more tell a story nor be translated into words than can music at its highest." The Horn Players evokes a musical interpretation. Standing out against the musician's black coats, painted in the flat mode of the art of Manet, the repeating gold curved shapes of the horns are suggestive of the deep and resonant sound of the instruments. The undulating contours of the woods and trees behind the figures convey a further sense of melodic movement and tonal gradation. Davies appears to have held onto The Horn Players until after 1925, when it entered the collection of Germaine Montereau, who was associated with the Manufactures des Gobelins, the factory in Paris and Beaugency, France, for which Davies would create designs for tapestries, beginning in 1925. The artist must have carried the painting overseas, perhaps as a means of payment to Montereau for the lessons he took in the art of weaving and for the refining of his designs so they could be produced. C The Spanierman Gallery, LLC