Lot 72: MAXFIELD PARRISH (1870-1966)

L'ALLEGRO signed with initials " MP," l.r. - - inscribed " "Straight mine eyes hath caught new pleasures" etc., " l.c. - - signed " Maxfield Parrish " and dated " "The Oaks", Windsor, Vermont, " May of 1901 on the reverse - - inscribed with title on the stretcher - - oil on paper 17 x 21 1/2 in. (43.2 x 54.5 cm.) PROVENANCE Helen Hay Whitney, New York Vose Galleries, Boston The Sardoni Family EXHIBITED Chadds Ford, Brandywine River Museum, " Maxfield Parrish: Master of Make- Believe, " May-Sept. 1974, p. 35, no. 73 LITERATURE J. Milton, "L'Allegro", " Century Magazine, " December 1901, p. 162. Illus. C. Ludwig, " Mixfield Parrish, " New York, 1973, p. 75, no. 50, illus. Maxfield Parrish spent the winter of 1900-1901 at Saranac Lake, New York. Among the paintings made there were those to illustrate A. T. Quiller- Couch's " Phoebus on Halzaphron " and John Milton's " L'Allegro. " Having been disappointed with some earlier attempts to reproduce his paintings with a color halftone technique, the process used then by most publishers for color illustrations in magazines, Parrish decided to utilize a rather subdued color scheme for the " Phoebus on Halzaphron " and " L'Allegro " illustrations. He suggested that he might do the colored drawings for " L'Allegro " in only two or three tints, so they would reproduce well in color or in black and white, should the publisher care to eliminate color altogether. When the color reproductions of the " L'Allegro " paintings appeared in " Century Magazine, " December 1901, Augustus Saint-Gaudens sent Parrish an enthusiastic letter about his work: The three drawings for Milton's " Allegro " you have done for the " Century " are superb, and I want to tell you how they impressed me. They are big and on looking at them I feel that choking sensation that one has only in the presence of the really swell thing. The shepherds on the hill, the Poet in the valley are great in composition and with the blithesome maid are among the most beautiful things I have ever seen... It is always an astonishment to me how after all the fine things that have been done and which seem to have exhausted all the possibilities of beauty, some man like you will come along and strike another note just as distinctive and just as fine. It is encouraging and stimulating. The artist Cecilia Beaux also sent word of her admiration for the " L'Allegro " pictures.