Rip Van Winkle (The Hermit)

Provenance

The artist

Commodore Edgar P. and Susan Vickers Luckenback, New York, 1970, acquired from the above

Mr. and Mrs. Lewis V. Luckenback, New York, acquired from above

Linda Louisa Luckenback, 1971, Bridgeport, West Virgina, daughter of above

Carl R. Chandler until 1975, acquired from above

Warren Adelson, Coe Kerr Gallery, Inc., New York, 1976, acquired from above

Fenn Galleries, Santa Fe, New Mexico, June 1977, acquired from above

Sale, Doyle Auctioneers & Appraisers, New York, New York, December 10, 2002, lot 34

Mrs. Eileen Price Farbman, New York, New York

Exhibited

Fenn Galleries Ltd, Santa Fe, New Mexico, R.A. Blakelock, 1977

Literature

Norman A. Geske and Peter H. Hassrick, Beyond Madness: The Art of Ralph Blakelock, 1847-1919 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2007), 69.

Abraham A. Davidson, Ralph Albert Blakelock (University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996), 87-88, fig 63.

Related Work

Landscape, 1885–95, oil on canvas, 27 x 37 3/8 inches, signed lower left: R.A. Blakelock; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York

Note

Like Blakelock’s Moonlights, Rip Van Winkle offers an example of a forest interior that is simultaneously “protective and imprisoning.”[1] Nature is portrayed as both protective and subtly menacing; Blakelock creates “a strong tunnel effect [that] pulls the viewer backward into shadowy recesses,” reinforcing the scene’s mysterious atmosphere.”[2]

This painting has been authenticated and catalogued by the University of Nebraska Inventory as NBI-883, category I.

[1] Davidson, Ralph Albert Blakelock, 87.

[2] Davidson, 85.