Object details
Accession number
P11n1
Primary Creator
Paul H. Tilton
(active about 1885 - 1895, Venice)
Full title
Venice
Creation Date
1886
Provenance
Purchased by Isabella Stewart Gardner's husband, John L. Gardner, Jr. (1837-1898), from Paul H. Tilton for 300 lire in 1886.
Marks
Inscribed (lower right): P. Tilton / VENICE / 1886
Dimensions
32 x 42 cm (12 5/8 x 16 9/16 in.)
Display Media
Oil on panel
Web Commentary
Paul Henry Tilton’s seascape of Venice — depicting a statue of the Madonna and Child underneath a bronze canopy in the foreground, and in the background, the city through the haze of the sailboat-filled lagoon — caught Jack Gardner’s eye when he and his wife Isabella Stewart Gardner were visiting their favorite city in September of 1886.
Born into an artistic family as the son of the American landscape painter John Rollin Tilton (1828-1888) the New York Times listed Paul Tilton in a group of talented progeny of established artists in 1880. “There are some young artists in Rome, says the Parisian, who still call themselves students, but who give great promise, and their talent is hereditary… young Tilton is a painter, and the buying public has already found its way to his studio.” The Gardners visited the artist’s studio multiple times when they were in Venice.
Permanent Gallery Location
Macknight Room
Bibliography
Philip Hendy. Catalogue of Exhibited Paintings and Drawings (Boston, 1931), p. 359. (as by Paul Tilton)
Gilbert Wendel Longstreet and Morris Carter. General Catalogue (Boston, 1935), p. 68. (as by Paul Tilton, 1886)
E. Bénézit et al. Dictionnaire des Peintres, vol. 8 (Paris, 1955), pp. 313-14. (as by John Rollin Tilton)
Philip Hendy. European and American Paintings in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston, 1974), p. 250, ill. (as by Paul Tilton, 1886)
Elizabeth Anne McCauley et al. Gondola Days: Isabella Stewart Gardner and the Palazzo Barbaro Circle. Exh. cat. (Boston: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum; Venice: Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, 2004), pp. 263, 276, fig. 213. (as by Paul Tilton, 1886)
Rights and reproductions
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