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Sparking

Francis William Edmonds

American, 1806–1863

Sparking

1839

Edmonds made his name painting distinctly American scenes of everyday life. This charming image shows a young man “sparking”—keeping company with a young woman in the warm glow of the firelight. A solitary apple in the foreground casts a long shadow across the floorboards. The conversation is clearly romantic, but a chaperone, visible through the open door, maintains propriety.

Medium oil on canvas
Dimensions 19 15/16 x 24 in. (50.6 x 61 cm)
Object Number 1955.916
Acquisition Acquired by Sterling and Francine Clark before 1955
Status On View

Image Caption

Francis William Edmonds, Sparking, 1839, oil on canvas. Clark Art Institute, 1955.916

Select Bibliography

Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.. The American Art-Union. Nov. 23, 1977-Jan. 15, 1978. (Cat. by Maybelle Mann.) Clark, H. Nichols B.. Francis W. Edmonds: American Master in the Dutch Tradition.. Jan. 9-Feb. 28, 1988; New York Historical Society, April 6-June 19, 1988. Amon Carter Museum of Western Art, Fort Worth, Texas. 1988. . "The Fine Arts--National Academy of Design.". vol. 16.. The Knickerbocker.. July 1840.. American Art-Union. Transactions of the Apollo Associaton, for the Promotion of the Fine Arts in the United States for the Year 1843. New York: Charles Vintem for the Association. 1843. American Art-Union. Transactions of the American Art-Union, for the Promotion of the Fine Arts in the United States for the Year 1844. New York: John Douglas. 1844. Charles Lanman.. Letters from a Landscape Painter.. Boston: James Monroe & Co.. 1845.. . National Academy of Design Exhibition Record: 1826-1860. Vol. 1.. New York: The New York Historical Society.. 1943.. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1970. Maybelle Mann.. "Francis William Edmonds: Mammon and Art.". vol. 2.. American Art Journal.. Fall 1970.. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling & Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1972. Donald D. Keyes.. Aspects of the Development of Genre Painting in the Hudson River Area before 1852. Ph.D. diss., New York University.. Ann Arbor: University Microfilms.. 1973.. Mann, Maybelle. "Humor and Philosophy in the Paintings of Francis William Edmonds." The Magazine Antiques 106, no. 5 (November 1974). Frankenstein, Alfred V. William Sidney Mount.. New York: Abrams. 1975. Maybelle Mann.. Francis William Edmonds: Mammon and Art.. New York: Garland Publishing.. 1977.. Maybelle Mann.. "American Art-Union: Missionaries in the Art World.". vol. 1.. American Art and Antiques.. July-August 1978.. Francis William Edmonds.. "Leading Incidents and Dates of My Life: An Autobiographical Essay by Francis William Edmonds.". vol. 13.. American Art Journal.. Autumn 1981.. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1984. Sarah Burns.. "Yankee Romance: The Comic Courtship Scene in Nineteenth-Century American Art.". vol. 18, no. 4.. American Art Journal.. Autumn 1986.:pp. 51-75.. Gustafson, Rothschild, Taylor, Vincent & Weintraub.. Art What Thou Eat.. Mount Kisko (NY): Edith C. Blum Art Institute.. 1990.. Conrads, Margaret C. American Paintings and Sculpture at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1990. Kern, Steven, ed. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1992. Eldredge, Charles C. Tales from the Easel: American Narrative Paintings from Southeastern Museums, circa 1800-1950. Southeastern Art Museum Directors Consortium. Columbus Museum, Columbus, Georgia, February 8- April 11, 2004; Tampa Museum of Art, April 25- July 11, 2004; The Speed Art Museum, Septemeber 14- December 12, 2004; El Paso Museum of Art, January 16- April 10, 2005. The University of Georgia Press. 2004:p. 46 Fig. 26. Wierich, Jochen. Grand Themes: Emanuel Leutze, Washington Crossing the Delaware, and American History Painting. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2012.

Provenance

W.R. Betts, Newburgh, New York, by 1844; to F.R. Betts; (Renaissance Galleries, Philadelphia); to (M. Knoedler & Co., New York, January 8, 1943); to Robert Sterling Clark, January 8, 1943.

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