MAXFIELD PARRISH | ROMANCE: AUCASSIN SEEKS FOR NICOLETTE

The artist

Alice S. Frosst, Montreal, Canada, circa 1950 (acquired from the above)

Private collection (by descent; sold: Sotheby's, New York, May 19, 2004, lot 174)

Acquired by the present owner at the above sale

Scribner's Magazine, vol. XXXIV, no. 1, July 1903, frontispiece illustration

Coy Ludwig, Maxfield Parrish, New York, 1973, no. 307, pp. 105, 212

Paul W. Skeeters, Maxfield Parrish: The Early Years 1893-1930, Secaucus, New Jersey, 1973, p. 140, illustrated p. 141

William Holland and Douglas Cogden Martin, The Collectible Maxfield Parrish, Atglen, Pennsylvania, 1993, p. 105

Laurence S. Cutler, Judy Goffman Cutler, and the National Museum of American Illustration, Maxfield Parrish and the American Imagists, Edison, New Jersey, 2004, p. 229, vintage print illustrated p. 118

Erwin Flacks, Identification and Price Guide of Maxfield Parrish, Portland, Oregon, 2007, p. 183

Maxfield Parrish painted Romance: Aucassin Seeks for Nicolette for the frontispiece of Scribner's Magazine in July 1903 to illustrate the poem "Romance" by A.M. Davies Ogden. In preparation for this illustration, Maxfield Parrish constructed a detailed model of the distant castle. "Just as Maxfield Parrish enjoyed making paper cutouts as a child," explains Coy Ludwig, "he also passed many pleasant hours making wooden models of buildings which served as backgrounds for the great pageants performed by his cast of paper characters...The artist applied his experience in making architectural models to his painting technique by making wooden models of the buildings (real and imaginary) that he intended to paint. The architectural models were illuminated with the desired effects of light and shadow and photographed in the studio. The glass-plate photographs were then used by the artist in laying out the composition" (Maxfield Parrish, New York, 1973, p. 200).

Romance: Aucassin Seeks for Nicolette was the first painting by Parrish that Scribner's reproduced in the form of a commercial art print. According to Laurence S. Cutler and Judy Goffman Cutler, "Many tried to collect art prints before they became generally available. Books were torn apart, magazines cannibalized and anything in color was framed and hung on the wall. Scribner's began to offer Maxfield Parrish prints in 1903, the first being Aucassin Seeks for Nicolette" (Maxfield Parrish and the American Imagists, Edison, New Jersey, 2004, p. 229).