American (Springfield, PA 1738 - 1820 London, England)
Fidelia and Speranza, 1784
Former Title: The Sisters
Former Title: Two Muses
Drawing
American
, 18th century
Watercolor and brown ink on cream laid paper
53 x 40.3 cm (20 7/8 x 15 7/8 in.)
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Bequest of Grenville L. Winthrop
, 1943.329
Department of Drawings
, Description
This drawing illustrates stanzas XII-XIV, Book I, Canto X of Edmund Spenser's poem "The Faerie Queene." It is a study for an oil painting which is now in the Putnam Collection at the Timken Museum, San Diego, CA.
Marks
signed: brown ink, l.l.: B. West 1784
Provenance
Scott & Fowles, New York, NY, sold to Grenville L. Winthrop, 1920; his bequest to the Fogg Art Museum, 1943.
Bibliography
"The Connoisseur", (New York, NY, February 1918), ill. opp. p. 63
Dorothy W. Gillerman, Gridley McKim-Smith and Joan R. Mertens, Grenville L. Winthrop: Retrospective for a Collector, exh. cat., Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, MA, 1969), p. 132, cat. 93, ill. p. 133
Kenyon Castle Bolton, III, Peter G. Huenink, Earl A. Powell III, Harry Z. Rand and Nanette C. Sexton, American Art at Harvard, exh. cat., Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, MA, 1972), cat. 14, ill.
Marjorie B. Cohn, Wash and Gouache: A Study of the Development of the Materials of Watercolor, exh. cat., Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, MA, 1977), pp. 71, 110, no. 63
Timken Art Gallery : European and American Works of Art in the Putnam Foundation Collection, Putnam Foundation (San Diego, CA, 1983), no. 42
Allen Staley and Helmut von Erffa, The Paintings of Benjamin West, Yale University Press (U.S.) (New Haven, CT and London, England, 1986), p. 403, no. 222
Timken Museum of Art, Timken Museum of Art : European Works of Art, American Paintings, and Russian Icons in the Putnam Foundation Collection, Putnam Foundation (San Diego, CA, 1996), p. 209, fig. 1
Derrick Randall Cartwright, Benjamin West: Allegory and Allegiance, exh. cat., Timken Museum of Art (San Diego, CA, 2004), p. 26, fig. 23
Dorothy W. Gillerman, Gridley McKim-Smith and Joan R. Mertens, Grenville L. Winthrop: Retrospective for a Collector, exh. cat., Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, MA, 1969), p. 132, cat. 93, ill. p. 133
Kenyon Castle Bolton, III, Peter G. Huenink, Earl A. Powell III, Harry Z. Rand and Nanette C. Sexton, American Art at Harvard, exh. cat., Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, MA, 1972), cat. 14, ill.
Marjorie B. Cohn, Wash and Gouache: A Study of the Development of the Materials of Watercolor, exh. cat., Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, MA, 1977), pp. 71, 110, no. 63
Timken Art Gallery : European and American Works of Art in the Putnam Foundation Collection, Putnam Foundation (San Diego, CA, 1983), no. 42
Allen Staley and Helmut von Erffa, The Paintings of Benjamin West, Yale University Press (U.S.) (New Haven, CT and London, England, 1986), p. 403, no. 222
Timken Museum of Art, Timken Museum of Art : European Works of Art, American Paintings, and Russian Icons in the Putnam Foundation Collection, Putnam Foundation (San Diego, CA, 1996), p. 209, fig. 1
Derrick Randall Cartwright, Benjamin West: Allegory and Allegiance, exh. cat., Timken Museum of Art (San Diego, CA, 2004), p. 26, fig. 23
Exhibition History
Grenville L. Winthrop: Retrospective for a Collector, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 01/23/1969 - 03/31/1969, no. 93
American Art at Harvard, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 04/19/1972 - 06/18/1972, 14
Wash and Gouache, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 05/12/1977 - 06/22/1977, 63