Currently not on view
South Sea Dance, Samoa,
1890
John La Farge, 1835–1910; born New York, NY; died Newport, RI
x1948-1798
In 1890, at the height of his career, the artist and stained-glass designer John La Farge was invited by the American historian Henry Brooks Adams to join him on a fifteen-month tour of the Pacific Islands. Traveling as tourists in relative luxury, Adams and La Farge visited Hawaii, Samoa, Tahiti, Fiji, Indonesia, and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) before returning to New York in the fall of 1891. La Farge filled his journals with notes and sketches, and executed meticulous watercolors—often based on photographs—that convey an anthropological approach to the exotic locations he visited, as well as the indigenous peoples, and their cultures, that he encountered.
Information
Title
South Sea Dance, Samoa
Dates
1890
Maker
Medium
Gouache and watercolor
Dimensions
26.5 x 39.2 cm (10 7/16 x 15 7/16 in.)
mount: 31 x 41.7 cm (12 3/16 x 16 7/16 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Frank Jewett Mather Jr.
Object Number
x1948-1798
Place Depicted
Samoa
Signatures
Signed in black ink, lower left: La Farge
Inscription
in black ink, lower right: 1890 | Samoa
Culture
Type
Materials
Subject
Durand-Ruel sale (according to H. LaFarge).;
Exhibited at The Art Club in Philadelphia.;
- Barbara T. Ross, American Drawings in the Art Museum, Princeton University: 130 Selected Examples (Princeton: Art Museum, Princeton University, 1976)., pp. 40-41, no. 38; p. 41 (illus.)
- John Wilmerding et al., American Art in the Princeton University Art Museum: volume 1: drawings and watercolors, (Princeton: Princeton University Art Museum; New Haven, CT; London: Yale University Press, 2004), p. 156 (illus.); p. 157, cat. no. 35
- Elisabeth Hodermarsky, et. al., John La Farge’s second paradise: voyages in the South Seas, 1890-1891, (New Haven, CT: Yale University Art Gallery: in association with Yale University Press, 2010).
