Lot 297: Elizabeth Otis Lyman Boott Duveneck (American, 1846 - 1888), ...Leaves, Monogrammed l.r., identified on a partial period label and late

Elizabeth Otis Lyman Boott Duveneck (American, 1846 - 1888)

...Leaves
Monogrammed l.r., identified on a partial period label and later inscription on the
reverse. Oil on canvas, 25 x 21 in. (63.5 x 53.3 cm), framed.
Condition: Minor losses, minor scattered retouch, craquelure, surface grime.


N.B. Born in Boston to a prominent family, Elizabeth Boott was the only child of Francis Boott, who was passionately interested in the arts. Boott, a noted composer and music critic, decided to move with his young daughter to Italy, where he felt the arts were more appreciated. Elizabeth showed a strong interest in drawing as a child, a talent encouraged by her father.

The family moved back to Boston when Elizabeth was nineteen, where she befriended the well-known James family, especially Alice, William, and Henry. The friendship continued throughout her life, and the novelist Henry James used Elizabeth¹s relationships as models for his fiction. Elizabeth was focused on pursuing a serious career in art, and studied with William Morris Hunt in Boston and with Thomas Couture outside of Paris. She discovered the art of Frank Duveneck, and decided she wanted to form a class of women painters to study with him at the Villa Castellani in Florence. Elizabeth and Frank soon developed a relationship, and in 1886, despite their varied differences, they married. In the interim, Elizabeth prospered in the art world, exhibiting at the American Watercolor Society, Boston Art Club, National Academy of Design, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and the Philadelphia Society of Artists.

After Elizabeth¹s death, Duveneck created a bronze sculpture for her grave in Bellosguardo, Italy, her childhood home. The creation, a recumbent tomb effigy, was so admired by Boott¹s father that he requested that Duveneck make a marble version to be shown at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston