The Crawford House with Horses Lady Blanch and Little Fan
Artist
Alfred Eduard Beguin
Period1870
MediumOil on canvas with hand colored photographic insert
Dimensions27 × 32.25 in. (68.6 × 81.9 cm)
SignedSigned lower left, "A. Beguin 1870."
ClassificationsLandscapes & Still Life
Credit LineGift of the Estate of Anne Jackson Riker, 1983
Object number1983.9.2
DescriptionLandscape view of a well dressed male standing in front of his house with two horses. He is wearing tan pants, black jacket and vest, white shirt, black tie, and a brown cap. A watch chain and fob hangs from his vest, and he carries a walking stick in his right hand. A gray horse is depicted to the left, and is identified as "Lady Blanche" in writing. A brown horse to the right is named "Little Fan." Two small light brown dogs flank the male. In the background is depicted the Crawford house, a story and a half structure painted white wtih green shutters. The main body of the building faces the road to the left, while a long rear wing extends behind it. The house has two white chimneys, and center and right side entries with columned porches. A small white outbuilding stands to the right of the house. A dirt road ascends a hill along the left edge of the painting. The yard between it and the house is surrounded by a white picket fence. The farm area to the right of the house is separated from the yard by a horizontal board fence. An open carriage stands before the shed on the right edge of the painting. Open fields, some fenced, rise behind the house to a wooded hillside. The face of the male figure is an attached albumen print photograph.Curatorial RemarksAlfred Eduard Beguin (1834 - 1906) was born in Saint-Légier, Switzerland. He was a student of Marc Gabriel Charles Gleyre and at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris around 1852. That this artist is the same person who worked in New Jersey two decades later is confirmed by a diary entry of the Rev. Garret Conover Schanck of Marlboro dated 3 September 1870. It reads, "Mr. Beguiss [sic], who has been here more than two weeks, as a Swiss artist, has finished his painting of the big tree and my residence."NotesThe Crawford House stood on the east side of Holmdel-Keyport Road in Holmdel north of its intersection with Crawford's Corner-Everett Road. According to the 1873 Beers atlas of Monmouth County and the 1889 Wolverton atlas of Monmouth County, the property was owned jointly by brothers John B. Crawford (1838 - 1904) and Albro Benton Crawford (1840 - 1888). The male figure at the center of the painting is older than the two brothers would have been in 1870, so it may be their father, William H. Crawford (1809 - 1874). The modest house, dating from the second quarter of the 19th century, stood in recognizable condition into the 1980s. It is now gone. The Holmdel-Keyport Road is depicted on the extreme left edge of the painting passing over a hill.
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