Daniel Ridgway Knight

Boussod, Valadon et Cie., Paris 
Knoedler & Co., New York (no. 4643, acquired September 4, 1884) 
Mrs. Mary J. Munsil, Hartford, Connecticut (1884)

Probably, Harold T. Lawrence, "Daniel Ridgway Knight, Painter," Brush and Pencil, January 1901, vol. 7, no. 4, p. 201

The following condition report was kindly provided by Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.: This large canvas has been mounted onto Masonite. Some fairly strong vertical cracking in the center of the sky is still visible, but this support is reasonably effective. There is slight instability in the lower right that needs attention. Under ultraviolet light, there are some clearly visible broad and misleading restorations throughout in the sky. These are designed to reduce some cracking, brighten some of the lighter areas in the clouds and perhaps reduce some unevenness in cleaning. In the remainder of the picture, one can see isolated spots of rather aimless restoration in the sleeves of the woman tending to the fire and of the child in the lower right. There is also some very broad and poorly applied retouching to the cracking to some of the darkest paint beneath the figures in the lower left, lower center and lower right, which is also clearly visible under ultraviolet light. This is a picture that certainly should be properly cleaned and retouched with more accuracy and discipline.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

After Ridgway Knight’s first artistic successes in Paris, Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissioner invited him to move to Poissy, a rural town not far outside the city limits. The renowned Meissonier was impressed with Ridgway Knight's talent and offered his protégé advice and a challenge: to paint a large picture from a recent sketch.  Ridgway Knight boldly met his mentor's goal, and the resulting painting of 1875, Les Laveuses (sold in these rooms April 25, 2006, lot 142) set him in a new direction, informing a series of ambitious and complex multi-figural compositions, like Burning Brush, which firmly established his international fame.

As a proponent of painting en plein air, Ridgway Knight closely studied natural light and his masterful technique can be seen in the present work as he effectively depicts the flat overcast sky of autumn. The burning of field weeds took place after the harvest, when the gleaners had completed their foraging. The event signaled the coming of winter, as illustrated by the peasants' heavy clothing. In Burning Brush, each detail of the landscape, field workers' costumes and gestures are carefully described to suggest how the efforts of "simple" tasks affected the women of Poissy. Ridgway Knight was also influenced by the works of Jean-François Millet and, while painting in Barbizon in 1874, he visited the artist. However, Ridgway Knight was not seduced by Millet’s realist view of rural farm life, choosing instead to depict his peasants in more cheerful circumstances. Such an idealization of the rural laborer followed themes established earlier in the nineteenth century and popularized by Ridgway Knight's contemporaries, such as Jules Breton and even William Bouguereau. In fact, the subject and composition of Burning Brush evokes Jules Breton's masterful Salon entry of 1869, Les Mauvaises Herbes (sold in these rooms, April 23, 2004, lot 28), which Ridgway Knight may have known through a commonly reproduced etching.