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THBArthur Fitzwilliam Tait (1819-1905), An Anxious Moment
About Seller
65 Sharp Street
Hingham, MA 02043
United States
Copley Fine Art Auctions is the world's leading American sporting art auction company. Located in Hingham, MA, Copley specializes in antique decoys and 19th- and 20th-century American, sporting, and wildlife paintings. Principal Stephen O'Brien Jr., a fourth-generation sportsman with a refined colle...Read more
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About Auction
LiveJul 11, 2024
Lots 1-253 Copley Fine Art Auctions cinnie@copleyart.com
View Full Catalog (253)
- Lot Description
Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait (1819-1905)
An Anxious Moment, 1871
signed, dated, and inscribed "A.F. Tait / N.Y. 1871" lower left
oil on canvas, 14 by 22 1/4 in.
titled and inscribed "No. 25 / "An Anxious Moment" / A.F. Tait / Y.M.C.A. 23rd St / N.Y. / 1871" on back
Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York label on back
Tait's register entry for this work reads, "No. 25 [1871] An Anxious Moment. 2 Trout Hooked. 22 x 14. fin. May 4th Schencks Sale sold to Jim B Blossom for $105.00 paid by Schencks May 22nd/71 net $92.40"
Known as one of America’s earliest sporting artists, Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait was born in Liverpool, England, in 1819. From an early age, he was interested in both art and the outdoors. Tait worked for the firm of Thomas Agnew, a famous art dealer and lithographer in Manchester, trained in lithography and drawing, and explored the open land around the city. However, many of the most beautiful vistas and hunting grounds were private and off limits. While working for the art firm, Tait was exposed to the works of Edwin Landseer, among others.
In Liverpool, beginning in 1843, Tait spent time with fellow artist George Catlin (1796-1872), which may have whetted the young artist’s appetite to explore life in America. Catlin had spent much of the previous decade living in the American West chronicling the lives of Native Americans, and Catlin's stories would have captivated the young and talented Tait.
In 1850 Tait came to America. By 1852 he was pursuing his interests in wildlife and hunting, working from a studio in New York City, but spending a great deal of time in the Adirondacks, where he acquired skills as an angler, hunter, and keen observer of wildlife. These skills were as important for Tait’s art as his fine ability with brush and pigment, since they gave an authenticity to his portrayals of outdoor life which was virtually unrivaled at the time. His relative freedom to paint wherever he wanted in the vast public lands of New York was obviously liberating to the artist, who had felt confined by the strict laws governing trespassing and hunting on private property in England.
With this liberation and experience of the outdoors, Tait’s artistic career flourished. In 1852, only two years after Tait arrived in New York, Currier and Ives purchased the first of many works from the budding artist. In that same year, Tait was asked to hang a half-dozen works at the National Academy of Design’s annual exhibition. By 1854 he had achieved an associate membership and four years later he became a full member. Editions of Tait’s works for Currier and Ives were reproduced by the thousands and formed some of America’s most iconic images of the Victorian era. The exceptionally popular "American Field Sports" series showcased Tait’s abilities as an upland bird and dog painter and included the four lithographs "A Chance for Both Barrels," "Flushed," "On a Point," and "Retrieving." These hunting scenes, along with his camping and woodland scenes, resonated with the public as an integral part of the American experience and continue to inform us of our history as a nation. Seminal works by Tait, such as "An Anxious Moment," "A Tight Fix," and "Trappers at Fault: Looking for the Trail," have become embedded as part of our heritage and serve as signposts along our path as a nation.
Today, Tait's wilderness, frontier, and wildlife scenes hang in some of the most prominent museums and private collections, including the permanent collections of the Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Massachusetts; the Adirondack Museum, Blue Mountain Lake, New York; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and the Shelburne Museum, Vermont; among others.
This painting relates to one of Tait's most famous colored engravings, "An Anxious Moment: Brook Trout Fishing," published by Currier & Ives in 1862. Of the many works by the artist, this is the only fishing oil to come up at auction in the last thirty years.
In 1871, Tait spent the summer with his wife Marian near South Pond in the Adirondacks, which lies between Blue Mountain Lake and Long Lake. Guidebook writers that summer wrote, "In this wild and secluded place, Mr. A.F. Tait has erected and nicely furnished a sylvan lodge; and here are produced some of those exquisite paintings that delight so many eyes. We doubt not his genius gathers inspiration from such surroundings, for never was the studio of an artist placed in a lovelier spot. A master hand is his in throwing the fly, floating for deer, or making the canvas glow with life!"
Jim B. Blossom, who first purchased this painting from the artist, was Tait's "congenial camping companion for many seasons." Robert Rose was an attorney and director of First National Bank in Binghamton, New York, who died in 1933.
This iconic painting of native brook trout captures the perfect moment before the angler nets two trophy fish on flies. The angler has brought the native brook trout into the shallows which are set against green lily pads and flora in the background. This work is, in many ways, the piscatorial version of Winslow Homer's "Right & Left," which hangs in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Tait's most closely related 1864 painting, "American Speckled Brook Trout," is in the collection of Princeton University.
Provenance: Jim B. Blossom Collection
Robert H. Rose Collection
T. Arthur LaRoche Sr. Collection
Literature: Warder H. Cadbury and Henry F. Marsh, "Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait: Artist of the Adirondacks," 1986, pp. 86, 88, 216, no. 71.16.Condition
Please email condition report requests to leah@copleyart.com.
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