Lot 27: William Sullivant Vanderbilt Allen (1860-1931)

In the Music Room with Daffodils
signed and inscribed 'Very truly yours William S. Allen' (upper right)
oil on canvas
21 3/4 x 18 in. (55.2 x 45.7 cm.)

Ethelinda Vanderbilt Allen, sister of the artist.
Mildred Sutton Ward, daughter of the above.
By descent to the present owner.

PROPERTY FROM A MEMBER OF THE VANDERBILT FAMILY

Allen, a well-to-do artist and great-grandson of Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, attended the École des Beaux Arts in Paris for ten years studying under Jules Lefebvre, Claude Monet, William Bougereau and Jean-Leon Gérôme. Allen was extremely friendly with a number of outstanding American artists of his time, including William Merritt Chase, Willard Metcalf, and Winslow Homer. Allen became acquainted with Chase while studying in Europe in the 1880s, and subsequently the two became quite close, often painting identical subject matter.
The cropped flattened forms incorporated in In the Music Room with Daffodils are reminiscent of Japanese art which was the height of fashion in turn-of-the-Century America and a recurrent technique found in many works by Chase and his circle of American Impressionists.