Provenance
Purchased February 1820 from the artist by Charles Russell Codman [1784-1852], Boston;[1] by descent to his son, James McMaster Codman [1831-1917], Boston; by inheritance to his daughter, Cora Codman Wolcott, Brookline; (her estate sale, Louis Joseph, Inc., Auctioneers, Boston, 13 May 1954, no. 492); unknown buyer; purchased by (Eunice Chambers, Hartsville, South Carolina); purchased 1957 by Dr. Irving Levitt, Detroit;[2] purchased December 1962 by (Hirschl and Adler Galleries, New York); sold 1963 to the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington; acquired 2014 by the National Gallery of Art.
[1] Codman's account book records the purchase: "Feb 1820/ W. Allston for a Picture 150" (Papers of Charles Russell Codman, in the Codman Family Papers, MS001.08, Historic New England, Boston). For this information and additional details about the descent of the painting in Codman's family, see the e-mail of 4 October 2006 from Richard Nylander, Senior Curator at Historic New England, Haverhill, Massachusetts, to Jenny Carson of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, in NGA curatorial files.
[2] See correspondence between Chambers and Levitt, Joseph Downs Collection of Manuscripts and Printed Ephemera, collection 451, box 1, folder 1 [papers of Eunice Chambers], The Winterthur Library, Delaware (copies in NGA curatorial files).
Accession Number
2015.19.96
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
overall: 45.4 × 64.14 cm (17 7/8 × 25 1/4 in.) | framed: 60.01 × 78.11 × 6.99 cm (23 5/8 × 30 3/4 × 2 3/4 in.)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
Corcoran Collection (Museum Purchase, William A. Clark Fund, Gallery Fund, and gifts of Orme Wilson, George E. Hamilton, Jr., and R. M. Kauffmann)
Tags
Painting Neoclassical & Romantic (1751–1850) Oil Painting Canvas American
Background & Context
Background Story
Washington Allston (1779-1843) was an American painter and poet known for his Romantic landscapes and imaginative subjects that make him one of the most important figures in the development of American Romantic painting. A Landscape after Sunset from c. 1819 depicts a landscape in the twilight after sunset in the Romantic, atmospheric manner that distinguishes Allston's best landscape painting. The c. 1819 date places this in Allston's most productive period, when he was producing the Romantic landscapes that make him one of the most important precursors of the Hudson River School and American Luminism.
Cultural Impact
A Landscape after Sunset is important in the history of American painting because it demonstrates the Romantic atmospheric manner that Allston introduced to American landscape painting. Allston's twilight landscapes—with their atmospheric effects and imaginative mood—anticipate both the Hudson River School's Romantic landscape and the Luminist paintings of the mid-19th century, making him one of the most important precursors of both traditions.
Why It Matters
A Landscape after Sunset is Allston's Romantic twilight: a landscape after sunset rendered in the atmospheric, imaginative manner that makes him one of the most important precursors of the Hudson River School and American Luminism. The c. 1819 painting anticipates both Romantic landscape and Luminist atmospheric effect.