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Dimensions: 24 × 20 in. (61.0 × 50.8 cm)
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Provenance: Property of Barbara Henderson and Susann Eastridge, Marshall, Virginia Provenance Henry Goodson Ives, Pittsfield, Massachusetts By bequest to Grace Mackintosh Ives Foster, his widow, Chevy Chase, Maryland To Helen Mackintosh Shepard, her sister, Washington, D.C.To Ann Shepard Green Harris, her daughter, Washington, D.C.To the current owners, her daughters, Marshall, Virginia
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Notes: Susann Eastridge has suggested that the subject of the painting is on the Isles of Shoals and may be the poet Celia Thaxter in her garden on Appledore, probably during the 1880s, when other known work of similar subject and style were painted by Abbott Graves. Although artistic license would have to be considered, there is some evidence to support this suggestion.Two unsigned and previously unattributed botanical watercolors (reproduced here along with the cover illustration of One Woman's Work: The Visual Art of Celia Laighton Thaxter by Sharon Paiva Stephan) found in this estate are almost certainly by the hand of Celia Thaxter.The documented layout of the Thaxter Garden - reconstructed in 1977 by Dr. John Kingsbury, founder and first director of the Shoals Marine Laboratory - bears some striking resemblances to the garden in the Graves painting, a different style fence not withstanding. Finally, in 1915 Star Island was sold to an association of Unitarians and Congregationalists. According to Susann Eastridge, Henry Ives, her great uncle, who owned the painting originally, was a Unitarian minister; and "his interest in the painting would have been enhanced by its being one of the Isles of Shoals." The family has a photograph of the Graves oil hanging on a wall in the family home, the so-called "Peace Party House"in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, in 1929. Joyce Butler, who has done extensive research on Abbott Graves, knows of no specific evidence that the artist spent time on Appledore but would find it very surprising if he did not. Graves or Childe Hassam (the latter of whom spent time on Appledore soon after returning from Europe in 1883 and also painted Celia Thaxter in her garden) may well have been familiar with or influenced by the other's work because there are striking resemblances. The two Thaxter watercolors will be sold as part of this lot.
