Currently not on view
Iris,
ca. 1872
Charles Herbert Moore, 1840–1930; born Hartfield, England; died New York, NY
x1994-77
One of the leading American Pre-Raphaelites, Moore abandoned his career as a landscape painter when he began teaching at Harvard in 1871, but he continued to produce watercolors as a pastime. He excelled in small-scale and highly detailed studies of rocks, fruits, and flowers, either in their natural setting or isolated against a plain background. In accounting for every petal and stalk, as in these two vibrant depictions of irises, painted outdoors and in his studio, Moore treated each flower with a portrait-like specificity. He used the medium’s transparency to best advantage in rendering the chromatic complexity of the single iris, layering reds and blues
of varying densities, particularly in the petal at lower right.
of varying densities, particularly in the petal at lower right.
Information
Title
Iris
Dates
ca. 1872
Maker
Medium
Watercolor over touches of graphite
Dimensions
20.9 x 18.2 cm (8 1/4 x 7 3/16 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Miss Harriet Dyer Adams
Object Number
x1994-77
Inscription
Inscribed in graphite, lower right: 2015 [Albany framer's number]
Inscribed in graphite, on verso across bottom: By Charles Herbert Moore [Harriet Dyer Adams's hand]
Culture
Type
Materials
Subject
The artist's daughter, Elizabeth Huntington Moore; Charles C. Adams, director of New York State Museum, Albany, 1947; his daughter, Harriet Dyer Adams, Troy; New York (her stamp, verso, lower right, in black. (Inv. No. 3).
- "Acquisitions of the Art Museum 1994," Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 54, no. 1 (1995): p. 40-79., p. 47
- 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. 244, cat. no. 63; p. 245 (illus.); pp. 356–357, checklist no. 1156
