RSW's Diary Comments

Grace of Years, Sepia

"Painted in 1935. A painting with an unusual history! The first painting I made following my disastrous fire in 1934 (after which I didn't paint for just a year, while I made over the Buckland house and studio.) A very superb picture of my loved Halifax house, and half of the main house with gable and all the tumbled down ell (before restored) with sunlight and shade on the building with giant elm and maples before it and a foreground of uncut grass, daisies, buttercups, devil's paint brush etc. A grand expression of old, fading N.E! Hearing during the winter 1934-5 that a N.Y. woman had bought 'my' Halifax House and that I was to meet her there July 1st, I made this my first painting when I again took up my work, hoping to sell it to her. Went to meet her July 1st taking the new canvas. She bought it for $650 on the spot! Mrs. E. Sherman Harris, "Cedar Ledges", Wappingers Falls, N. Y. She bought several chalk

A clipping from a newspaper of Grace of Years

drawings later and tried to give me the house and whole farm, after she had restored it, which I refused to accept! After she had had the canvas for 6 years and been keen about it, she gave it back, unattached, to me because she felt, after our war was declared that the Germans were going to bomb her district about West Point first, and thus would destroy the painting! Hence at the date of this writing I again own the painting! (Dec. 1946). Bought by Grand Central Art Galleries of N. Y. for the 1954 Founders Exhibition April, 1954."

Comment on the back of a sepia print:

"An old red house in Halifax, Vt. with magnificent elms and maples guarding it. Have painted this house many times. Mrs. Kohl owns a smaller painting of the front of the house."

The Manchester (VT) Journal, August 29, 1940

"...The Grace of Age, (name later changed to The Grace of Years) an old worse-for-wear New England farm home, is the subject, resting peacefully beneath large trees in the warm sun."

Came up for auction at Skinner Inc. on 9/11/92 but was not sold. Low estimate was $2,000. High estimate was $2,500

Sold at auction by Young Fine Arts, North Berwick, Maine, on Sept. 18, 1993 for $2,500.

Below: A scanned excerpt from a letter where RSW made mention of this piece and saying of the Halifax house, "As I first found it years ago..." and since, "...quite successfully restored."

Handwritten comment by RSW in a letter.

Provenance of the Halifax House Click Here.