JOHN GADSBY CHAPMAN | THE REAPER'S MASS, ROME

Mr. and Mrs. Maurice Glickman, New York (by 1972) 

Private Collection, Boston

Sale: Sotheby's, New York, December 5, 1996, lot 108, illustrated 

Acquired at the above sale 

Joel Sternfeld, Campagna Romana: The Countryside of Ancient Rome, New York, 1992, pp. xvi-xvii, illustrated in color fig. 6 (as Harvesters’ Mass on the Roman Campagna)

New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, 18^th and 19^th Century American Art From Private Collections, June 27-September 11, 1972, no. 12 (lent by Mr. and Mrs. Maurice Glickman) 

Drawn by its Renaissance art treasures, ancient monuments, and large and active artist colony, the American artist John Gadsby Chapman travelled to Rome as early as 1828. Upon his return to America, he found success with a series of colonial-era American historical paintings, including Landing at Jamestown and Crowning the Powhatan, which led to a commission for the United States Capital building in 1837. His Baptism of Pocahontas was installed in the Rotunda in 1840 to great acclaim, though by 1848 Chapman and his family relocated from New York City to Rome. In Italy Chapman was inspired by the rural Campania and frequently sold his evocative views of local traditions, such as the present work, to American tourists.