catalog text
JAMES CRAWFORD THOM
American, 1835-1898
River Landscape of a Beached Boat
Oil on panel | Signed lower right "Jas C. Thom 78" | period faded label verso "No. (illegible)"
Item # 103DLO11P
A scene that shows the influence of the French Barbizon painters on his style and technique, this fine work in oil on wood artist panel depicts a rustic sailboat beached on the shore of a small river beneath cloudy skies with hints of buildings in the distance behind the autumnal leaves of the towering trees. The brushwork is fast and chaotic, lending an overall impressionism to the surface with endlessly layered oil pigments to leave the viewer with only a sense of what Thom was experiencing in the quiet grove. It is signed lower right "Jas. C. Thom 78", a year that he gave no address when exhibiting at the National Academy of Design in New York, though the year prior he lived in Portchester and the subsequent year he lived at 27 Beaver Street in New York.
ARTIST
Born in New York City in 1835 to the Scottish sculptor, James Thom, James Crawford Thom initially studied at the National Academy of Design in 1953 before going abroad in 1859 for further study in Paris where he became a pupil of Edward Frère, who had a great deal of influence on his genre portraits of children and rural scenes; he also and studied with Camille Corot, Thomas Couture and Henri Picou. While he was active in New York City art scene as early as 1957, the year of his first exhibited at the National Academy, he spent a great deal of time abroad and from 1864 to 1873 he exhibited 7 works at the Royal Academy, 3 works at the British Institute, 23 at Suffolk Street as well as several at other various exhibitions in London; his given address at the time was Brentford, England. When he returned from Paris and London, he initially settled in New York City in 1873 and moved around throughout the area, living in Portchester, New York in 1876 and New Brighton, Staten Island in 1881. He moved to Old Bridge, New Jersey in 1884 and finally settled in Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey in 1892. He exhibited at the Boston Athenaeum of 1878 as well as the Pennsylvania Academy. He died in 1898 in Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey.
Examples of his work are held in the permanent collections of the Walters Art Museum, the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Newark Museum.
Artist Listings & Bibliography:
- New York Historical Society's Dictionary of Artists in America 1564-1860, Groce & Wallace, 1979, p. 624
- E. Benezit Dictionary of Artists, Vol. XIII, Gründ, 2006, p. 868
- Exhibition of the National Academy 1861-1900, Vol. II, Naylor, p. 922-923
- Mantle Fielding's Dictionary of American Painters, Sculptors & Engravers, Opitz, 1984, p. 929
- A Dictionary of Artists Who Have Exhibited Works in the Principal London Exhibitions From 1760 to 1893, Graves, 1973, p. 275
Measurements: 9 5/8" H x 16 1/2" W [panel]; 17 1/4" H x 24 1/4" W [frame]
Condition Report: Professionally conserved, faint horizontal crack mid-left filled and inpainted, surface cleaned and fresh Damar varnish applied. Trace craquelure throughout. Old frame, perhaps the first frame for the painting, gilding and other losses throughout frame. Glass has a few scratches on it - the "scratch" in the center of the painting is just a scratch on the glass. Under UV examination (photos upon request) shows the thin horizontal line of inpainting associated with the filled shrinkage crack left; 1 tiny spot touch up lower left, older touch up to clouds in upper right sky, other minor touchups.