catalog text
"POTATO PICKERS" BY JOHN CARLETON WIGGINS (AMERICAN, 1848-1932)
Executed in oil on canvas; signed Carleton Wiggins lower left
Item # 901RTV09
The subject being a departure from the body of his work, mostly focused on animal sketches and pastoral landscapes, the style and handling of the scene is incredibly familiar to Wiggins paintings. Heavily influenced by the Barbizon School, both in style and subject matter, John Carleton Wiggins (preferring to just go by Carleton Wiggins) captures this scene without even a hint of the nostalgia so common in field scenes of his contemporaries. The atmosphere is heavy with a low-saturation tonalism in the palette that accurately expresses this life of poverty and difficult circumstances. Four laborers work this muddy field before the houses and barns of the background, one working the wheelbarrow in the distance while to till the soil by hand. A few burlap sacks are piled to the side with scattered potatoes, the product of a hard days work under overcast skies. The foremost figure stares at the viewer with a certain hollowness and resignation. This is a rare human interest study by Wiggins and particularly moving. Housed in a later but appropriate plein-air frame with carved polychromed and parcel ebonized molding over a canvas matting, it presents beautifully.
Measurements: 17" H x 23" W [frame]; 10 5/8" H x 16 5/8" W [canvas]
Condition Report:
Likely cleaned in the last 40 years, remaining a vibrant and fine presentation. Housed in a Japanese hand-carved plein-air frame, not original: staining to the canvas matting. Craquelure throughout, though perhaps exaggerated by the lighting in the photos. Under UV showing a few touch ups to the surface, perhaps 5%, including edge touchups.