MARSDEN HARTLEY | Iron in the Rock

The artist
Estate of the above
Paul Rosenberg & Co., New York, 1944 (acquired from the above)
Private collection, 1960 (acquired from the above)
By descent to the present owners

New York, The Downtown Gallery, Marsden Hartley: Pictures of New England by a New Englander, April-May 1932, no. 15
New York, The Downtown Gallery, Exhibition of Contemporary Paintings by the Artists of the United States, n.d., no. 32

Elizabeth McCausland, Marsden Hartley Catalogue Raisonné Research, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Museum, Washington, D.C., box 15, folder 4, frames 22-23
Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Volume of Photographs of Paintings, Pastels and Drawings from the Estate of Marsden Hartley, Washington, D.C., no. 71, illustrated

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes, Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This work has been restored and should be hung in its current state. The panel on which it is painted is flat. The paint layer is stable, clean and lightly varnished. Under ultraviolet light, one can see a few retouches around the extreme edges, in a few tiny dots around the central rock in the sky, and in a few other small dots in the center of the left side. Within the landscape, there is a group of retouches in the darkest colors roughly in the center of the work, and four or five other restorations towards the right edge. There are a few retouches in the lower left. Almost all of these restorations address previous instability in the darker colors, which are now stable.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

We are grateful to Gail R. Scott for preparing the following note:

Inspired and energized by his discovery in 1931 of a stretch of glacial moraine near Gloucester, Massachusetts called Dogtown Common, Marsden Hartley painted over twenty works depicting the rugged, boulder-strewn landscape.  Iron in the Rock, with its massive outcrop of jagged, rust-red rock, surrounded by scrubby vegetation and silhouetted against a clear blue sky and single oval cloud, is a prime and fresh example of this important series. Describing the brilliant November light as "strange and other-worldly," Hartley could have been referring to Iron in the Rock when he commented that the paintings were "like sunlit bronze sculpture – so deep and majestic."

This painting is included in Gail R. Scott’s Marsden Hartley Legacy Project.