Moonlight and Clouds

Provenance

George A. Hearn, New York, acquired by 1908
American Art Association, New York, February 26, 1918, lot 91
Bertram T. Newhouse, New York
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California, acquired from the above by 1969
Sale, Sotheby’s, New York, December 5, 1985, lot 23, from above
Private collection, from above
Sale, Sotheby’s, New York, January 24, 2026, lot 235

Exhibited

Los Angeles Municipal Art Department, Los Angeles, California, The American Scene, 1956.

The Art Galleries, University of California Santa Barbara; San Francisco, California Palace of the Legion of Honor and Phoenix Art Museum (and traveling), The Enigma of Ralph A. Blakelock 1847-1919, 1969, no. 86.

San Francisco, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, The Color of Mood: American Tonalism 1880-1910, 1972, no. 2

Spokane, Washington, World’s Fair, Our Land, Our Sky, Our Water, 1974.

Literature

George A. Hearn, Catalogue of the collection of foreign and American paintings owned by Mr. George A. Hearn (Priv. print. [The Gilliss press], 1908), ix, 183.

David Gebhard, The Enigma of Ralph A. Blakelock 1847-1919 (The Regents, University of California, 1969), 29, no 86; 74, illustrated.

Ralph Albert Blakelock 1847–1919, exh. cat. (Lincoln: Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery; Trenton, NJ: New Jersey State Museum, 1975), 19, 32n18.

Glyn Vincent, The Unknown Night: The Genius and Madness of R.A. Blakelock, An American Painter, New York, 2003, 217.

Related Work

Moonlight, ca. 1885-1889, oil on canvas, 27 1/16 x 32 inches, signed lower right: R.A. Blakelock; The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York

Afterglow, 1870-90 Oil on canvas 16 x 24 inches; Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Texas

Note

The present work was once owned by George A. Hearn, one of the most prominent American art collectors and donors of the 19th century. Hearn collected across a spectrum of contemporary Americans including but not limited to John Singer Sargent, George Inness, Winslow Homer, Childe Hassam and more. He later bequeathed much of his collection to The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Later, this work passed into the esteemed collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where it was lent to landmark exhibitions for Blakelock such as The Enigma of Ralph A. Blakelock 1847-1919, organized by the University of California Santa Barbara.

This painting has been authenticated and catalogued by the University of Nebraska Inventory as NBI-238, category II.