Object: The Artist In His River Camp (probably the Cheat River in West Virginia), Landscape, Oil on Canvas, Signed LL
Dimensions: Width 19 ” x Height 10″
Maker: Adalbert Johann Volck (pseudonym V. Blada) (1828-1912)
Location: Baltimore, Maryland
Date: 1873
Commentary: This painting provides an excellent example of the sense of humor that permeated the political cartoons and illustrations for which Adalbert Volck is best remembered today. The scene depicts an artist, possibly Volck himself, in his camp on the gravely banks of a river with mountains in the background. In the camp can be seen the artist’s easel, tent and laundry drying on a line. Volck made a sketching trip to the Cheat River region of West Virginia and exhibited several of the works that derived from this trip at the Charcoal Club depicting the Narrows of the Cheat River, Goff’s Ferry, a view near the Sumiate River, and Laurel, near the Blackwater. This painting is likely one of this group although it is possible that the scene was a later depiction of Volck’s brief foray to California during the Gold Rush immediately after his arrival in America.
Adalbert Volck left Germany at the age of twenty, probably a refugee from the revolutions of 1848, and by 1851 had settled permanently in Baltimore. Volck taught chemistry at the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery, the world’s first such institution, while studying to become a dentist himself. Volck supported his family through dentistry while pursuing his career as a painter and interest in a variety of decorative arts. Along with painting landscapes and still life subjects, Volck worked in silver, gold, ivory carving and diverse forms of sculpture. He was instrumental in the founding of the Baltimore Academy of Art, the Wednesday Club and the Charcoal Club, and was a well known figure in the city’s artistic community.
During the American Civil War, Volck was a committed Southern partisan and produced a series of political prints caricaturing Union political and military figures, most prominently Lincoln and Benjamin Butler, who commanded the Federal garrison in Baltimore. Described by some as the South’s Thomas Nast, Volck produced most of his work under the pseudonym V. Blada, a reversal of the spelling of his name. He also illustrated several publications, frequently with images sympathetic to the Southern cause, and was famous in his day for portraits of Stonewall Jackson, “Lee In His Study, Lexington” and “Lee At Jackson’s Grave.” Examples of Volck’s works are held by numerous institutions including the Maryland Historical Society, The New York Historical Society and the Smithsonian.
Condition: The painting survives in excellent condition. It is unlined and is in a period frame.
Price: Sold
Additional Photos
Detail of possible self-portrait
Detail of Artist’s Signature
