Courtyard at Noon

Provenance

Private collection, Michigan

Sale, Freeman’s, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, December 4, 2022, lot 104

Private collection, New York, New York, acquired from above

Exhibited

Palace of Fine Arts, San Francisco, California, Post-Exposition Exhibition in the Department of Fine Arts, Panama-Pacific International Exposition, January 1–May 1, 1916

Literature

Illustrated Catalogue of the Post-Exposition Exhibition in the Department of Fine Arts, Panama-Pacific International Exposition, San Francisco, California, January First to May First, Nineteen Hundred & Sixteen (San Francisco Art Association, 1916), 43, no. 4592.

Brian H. Peterson, The Cities, the Towns, the Crowds: The Paintings of Robert Spencer (Doylestown, PA: James A. Michener Art Museum, 2004), 139.

Related Works

Courtyard at Dusk, 1913, oil on canvas, 30x 36⅛ inches; de Young Museum, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, California

The Courtyard, ca. 1916, oil on canvas, 30 x 25 inches; Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis, Tennessee

Note: Robert Spencer created at least three of these courtyard scenes, which center around the daily activities of the figures and showcase cascading light across the building façades. Although the painting may call to mind a villa in the Italian countryside, it was likely completed near Bucks County, Pennsylvania where the artist spent many years studying and painting.