Estimated Price:

   $   

Realized Price:

   $   

What is this symbol? This symbol indicates that this auction hose has verified this price result.

Log in or subscribe to view price data

"V. 91" (lower right) also signed "Elihu Vedder Rome 1898" (lower center) pastel and charcoal on paper 9 x 9 in. (22.9 x 22.9 cm) painted in 1891 Literature Elihu Vedder, the digressions of v., written for his own fun and that of his friends, boston and new york, 1910, pp. 408-417, 483-488 Regina Soria, elihu vedder, american visionary artist in rome, 1836-1923, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, New Jersey, 1970, pp. 183-230; also 332-346 and 366-375 In 1891, refreshed by the success of his illustrations for the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam in 1884, and inspired by a trip to Egypt in 1889-90, Elihu Vedder was at the height of his artistic powers. Prompted by his friend, the expatriate British poet William Davies, Vedder had also undergone a spiritual revival during the late 1880s and early 1890s that combined aspects of Buddhism and Christianity with an admiration of the works of the eighteenth-century English artist and mystic, William Blake. Vedder~dq~s spiritual revival is most apparent in his paintings and drawings of this period, paintings and drawings that bore such titles as The Cup of Death, 1884-85 (Smithsonian American Art Museum), The Fates Gathering in the Stars, 1887 (The Art Institute of Chicago), The Morning Glory, 1890s (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), and The Soul in Bondage, 1891 (The Addison Gallery of American Art). Many of these works feature almost abstract treatments of the female nude, in closed or open configurations, and serve as metaphors of death and the afterlife that derive from the artist~dq~s own self-described visions and meditations. The drawing of Sleep is integral to this seamless stream of mystic imagery. It is reminiscent not only of Blake~dq~s controlled linear maelstroms, but also-and perhaps more startlingly-of Celtic metalwork and medieval manuscript illumination, which would soon become key ingredients in the development of his art.