Lot 175: RALPH EARL 1751-1801 RUGGLES HOMESTEAD, NEW MILFORD, CONNECTICUT, 1796

oil on canvas (three pieces with a vertical and short horizontal seam).

PROVENANCE

M. Knoedler and Co., New York
EXHIBITED

Washington D.C., Ralph Earl: The Face of the Young Republic, November 1, 1991-January 1, 1992
Hartford, Connecticut, Wadsworth Atheneum
CATALOGUE NOTE

Painted circa 1796; appears to have original frame.

Jared Lane kept a detailed account book that documents the construction of a new house or wing on the property he had acquired in 1789 from his father-in-law, Lazarus Ruggles. Lane's property in the Still River Neck section of New Milford, later called Lanesville, was located several miles south of the town center. According to the account book, John Couch contracted to build "the Northern part of the House" as well as a "Waggon House" beginning in January 1791, and work was completed at the end of 1792. There are various references in his records to the "new house" or the "northern" part of the house and the "old" or "southern" part of the house. It is unclear whether Lane simply built a large addition to the original Orange Warner farm or whether he built a new house nearby on the property.

Earl created a picturesque setting for his landscape of the Lane house, conveying some of the pretensions of English country-house painting. The house is carefully rendered, including the Palladian features that relate it stylistically to both the Canfield house (cat. 54) and the Boardman house (cat. 58). A cupola crowns the top. The house is set back from the surrounding landscape, with the Housatonic River winding across the foreground. There are well-maintained fields, recently planted trees, and in front of the house, a white post fence running along the road. In the distance are gently rolling hills, typical of the region.

The landscape remained in the Ruggles-Lane house, which was inherited by Jared and Apphia Lane's three children. Their daughter, Maria Apphia, lived in the house with her husband, Dr. Amaziah Wright. The house, with the landscape, descended in the Wright family until 1948, when Kennedy Galleries of New York sold the landscape to a private collection.

Excerpted from Elizabeth M. Kornhauser, Ralph Earl The Face of the Young Republic, (New Haven, Yale University Press), 1991

38 by 52in.<br><br>96.5 by 132.1cm