Inaugural Fine and Decorative Arts Sale
Lot 126:
Description
CHARLES F. BLAUVELT
(American, 1824-1900)
"The Relic Hunter" (1854)
Oil on canvas | Signed lower left "Blauvelt 1854" | retains an old Sotheby’s label
30 1/8" H x 24 7/8" W [canvas]; 41" H x 35 1/2" W x 3 1/4" D [frame]
A similar work was painted by Blauvelt of the same title [offered at Northeast Auctions 5 November 2005, lot 589], though the details of what the man discovers in the dirt include the remnants of a broken sword and a man’s skull, suggestive of a duel or perhaps a murder. The present painting is signed in the lower left corner "Blauvelt" and dated 1854. Retains an old Sotheby’s, New York label.
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Condition: Professionally cleaned. Relined on new stretchers in the last quarter of 20th century. Period frame with inpainted losses throughout, large loss of applied gesso decoration along lower edge. Under UV examination shows old overpainting above the kneeling figure in the sky, a vertical line of filling and associated inpainting beneath his shoe, inpainted edge wear losses where the frame rubs, three spots of fillings and inpainting immediately left of the arched ruins; some light overpainting to blue "mountains" to figure’s left and an inpainted scratch in those mountains; other minor spots of touch up.
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Dimensions: 41 x 35.5 x 3.25 in
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