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Sunset

1872
Not on view
Like Kensett's "Sunset on the Sea", both this work and "Sunset Sky" probably represent sunrise, since such would have been more readily observable over open water from the artist's studio near Darien, Connecticut, facing Long Island Sound to the south and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Indeed, this work seems an essay departing directly from "Sunset Sky", which in turn looks like directly recorded aerial phenomena or, perhaps, simply an abandoned composition. The obvious relationship between the two works gives rise to the speculation that at least some of the artist's coastal subjects, especially those done in the privacy of his island studio, evolved from transient light and atmospheric effects captured, then shaped into paintings by adding foregrounds contrived of generic-looking terrain that may or may not have been typical of that fronting the water near his property.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Sunset
  • Artist: John Frederick Kensett (American, Cheshire, Connecticut 1816–1872 New York)
  • Date: 1872
  • Culture: American
  • Medium: Oil on canvas
  • Dimensions: 18 x 30 in. (45.7 x 76.2 cm)
  • Credit Line: Gift of Thomas Kensett, 1874
  • Object Number: 74.37
  • Curatorial Department: The American Wing

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[Photographs of paintings by J. F. Kensett]
John Frederick Kensett
1874 (?)
Lake George, 1872, John Frederick Kensett American, Oil on canvas, American
Lake George, 1872
John Frederick Kensett
1872
Seated female figures, train in left background, ship in right background (bank note design)
John Frederick Kensett
ca. 1835–72
Bank Note Element: A Woman in Classical Robes Embracing a Large Broken Stone Letter "I", with a Distant Sailing Ship to the Left and a Factory to the Right
John Frederick Kensett
1835–72
Bank Note Element: Three Cupids with Tendrils
John Frederick Kensett
1835–72

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