The Cobbler's Apprentice
187739 1/2 x 27 7/8 in. (100.33 x 70.8 cm)
Frank Duveneck (American, 1848–1919)
Medium:
Oil on canvas
Credit Line:
Bequest of Charles Phelps Taft and Anna Sinton Taft
Accession Number:
1931.415
Currently on View in:
Plum Parlor (10)
Exhibition History
Ohio. Cincinnati Art Museum. Exhibition of the Work of Frank Duveneck, May 23–June 21, 1936, no. 21.Ohio. Cleveland Museum of Art. American Painting from 1860 until Today, June 23–October 4, 1937, no. 51.
Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. Cranbrook Academy of Art. Light and the Painter, September 5–28, 1952, no. 26.
Raleigh. North Carolina Museum of Art. Tobacco and Smoking in Art, October 14–December 4, 1960, no. 18.
Minnesota. Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Four Centuries of American Art, November 27, 1963–January 19, 1964.
Ohio. Cincinnati Art Museum. Munich and American Realism in the Nineteenth Century, April 15–May 28, 1978, no. 24.
Mobile, Alabama. The Fine Arts Museum of the South. The Ripening of American Art: Duveneck and Chase, 1876–1912, October 16–November 25, 1979, no. 2.
Lexington, Kentucky. University of Kentucky Art Museum. The Kentucky Painter: From the Frontier Era to the Great War, January 23–March 15, 1981, no. 30.
Ohio. Cincinnati Art Museum. An American Painter Abroad: Frank Duveneck's European Years, October 3, 1987–January 3, 1988, no. 17.
Ohio. Columbus Museum of Art. One Hundred Fifty Years of American Art from Ohio Collections, January 19–March 15, 1992.
Youngstown, Ohio. Butler Institute of American Art. Triumph of Color and Light: Ohio's Impressionists and Post Impressionists, March 12–April 30, 1995.
Minnesota. Minneapolis Institute of Arts. November 6, 2001–August 6, 2003 (during TMA renovation).
Germany. Haus Der Kunst, Munich. Die Kraftprobe – 200 Jahre Akademie der Bildenden Ku?nste Mu?nchen, May 30–August 31, 2008.
Ohio. Cincinnati Art Museum. Cincinnati Collects America, June 12, 2010–September 5, 2010.
Ohio. Cincinnati Art Museum. Frank Duveneck: American Master, December 18, 2020–March 28, 2021.
Cincinnati, Ohio. Taft Museum of Art. In a New Light: Treasures from the Taft, July 3, 2021–May 1, 2022.
Gallery Label
A working boy holds a lit cigar and blows smoke through his puckered lips. He carries a basket holding a cauliflower and a leather boot. His rolled shirtsleeves, apron, and dirty fingernails suggest a life of hard labor. Covington, Kentucky–born artist Frank Duveneck painted The Cobbler’s Apprentice while in Munich, Germany, where he practiced bold brushwork to depict working-class subjects. Choosing laborers and peasants as his models and rendering them with strong contrasts of light and dark, Duveneck later shared these techniques with students in Munich, Florence, and Cincinnati.
Provenance
Created by the artist; purchased by Von Hessling [1]. Acquired by Joseph Stransky, by 1918. Purchased by Norbert Heermann, agent for Charles Phelps Taft [1843-1929] and Anna Sinton Taft [1850-1931], Cincinnati, OH, 1918; donated to the Cincinnati Institute of Fine Arts, Cincinnati, OH, May 21, 1927 [2]; transferred to the Taft Museum of Art, Cincinnati, OH, September 1, 2006 [3].Notes:
[1]. Von Hessling was the American vice-consul in Munich. See Catalogue of the Taft Museum, 1995. [2]. The Cincinnati Institute of Fine Arts (CIFA) was formed by Charles Phelps and Anna Sinton Taft on March 22, 1927 as a non-profit corporation to stimulate the development of art and music in the City of Cincinnati and run the Taft Museum of Art, which opened in 1932. The Tafts offered $1 million for a permanent endowment fund, on the condition that the community raise $2.5 million in matching funds, which was achieved by December 3, 1928. [3]. Until August 31, 2006, the Museum was owned by CIFA, administered by CIFA’s Board of Trustees, and governed by the Taft Museum Board of Overseers. On September 1, 2006, the Museum legally separated from CIFA and began operations as its own incorporated 501(c)(3) entity. This separate incorporation led to the transfer to the separate entity after August 31, 2006 of all tangible assets comprising the Taft collection.
Collection Lists
This artwork is in the following list(s):
