Ruins of the Parthenon

1880

Sanford Robinson Gifford

Painter, American, 1823 - 1880

A view across a wide, brightly lit field scattered with broken pieces of stone is framed to the left and right by crumbling stone temples in this horizontal painting. The sunlight is infused with a soft pink glow, which warms the cream-white stone with a pale blush. The temple on our left sits on a low rise, and a row of at least nine columns topped with an entablature faces our right. Several of the columns are broken off, and part of the entablature and the entire roof is missing, from what we can see. Fragments of pediments and wheel-like sections of columns tumble down from its front steps and back along its side, cascading into and across most of the field before us. The rocky terrain is carpeted in celery-green growth speckled with sage green and areas of rust red in the lower left and right corners. Barely visible in the center of the field, are two men, barely taller than the fragments they inspect. One man wears an apricot-orange suit and bowler hat over blond hair. He kneels with his back to us as he writes or sketches on a piece of paper. A second man stands to his right, also with his back to us, dressed in a long pleated, white tunic with a red cap, jacket, and knee-high boots. To our right and farther back than the other temple, a brick-red tower stands next to another columned arcade. A third temple there, or perhaps another part of that building complex, has columns carved into the shape of six identical, robed women, facing our left. Beyond the ruins, the field slopes down to a peach-colored plain that ends at a wide, topaz-blue body of water with mountains in the far distance along the low horizon line. A petal-pink haze rises from the water and mountains and almost fills the blue-gray sky above. The artist has signed and dated the painting in the lower left, “S.R. Gifford 1880.”

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Like his friend and fellow artist Frederic Edwin Church, Sanford Robinson Gifford sought inspiration both in the northeastern United States and further afield. The Ruins of the Parthenon derives from sketches he made while visiting the Acropolis in 1869. In this depiction, the famous temple is surrounded by strewn architectural fragments and studied by a sketching artist (possibly a self-portrait) and his Greek guide. However, the hilltop setting ultimately serves to showcase another more subtle motif: a remarkable range of light and atmospheric effects that Gifford rendered with unrivaled and much-heralded finesse. The sky's nearly invisible transitions from pale pinks near the horizon to deep blues above evidence the artist's frequent remark to his brother that of all of his paintings, this one demanded the most "painstaking labor." Tellingly, Gifford referenced his precise portrayal of light and atmosphere by deeming the completed work "not a picture of a building, but a picture of a day."

The artist considered The Ruins of the Parthenon—his last important painting—the crowning achievement of his career, and hoped that it would be acquired by an American museum. When he visited the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, and reached the gallery featuring Church's Niagara, he remarked: "there would be a good place for my ‘Parthenon.'" Although the painting remained unsold at Gifford's death, the Corcoran purchased it at his estate sale in 1881 for $5,100, at the time the highest price ever paid for one of the artist's paintings.

On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 67

Artwork overview

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Estate of the artist; purchased 12 April 1881 by the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington; acquired 2014 by the National Gallery of Art.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1880

  • Fifty-fith Annual Exhibition, National Academy of Design, New York, March-May 1880, no. 261.

  • The Memorial Collection of the Works of the Late Sanford R. Gifford, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, October 1880-March 1881, no. 27, as The Parthenon.

1949

  • De Gustibus: An Exhibition of American Paintings Illustrating a Century of Taste and Criticism, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, January-February 1949, no. 24.

1959

  • The American Muse: Parallel Trends in Literature and Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959, no. 52.

1970

  • Sanford Robinson Gifford 1823-1880, University of Texas Art Museum, Austin; Albany Institute of History and Art; Hirschl and Adler Galleries, New York, 1970-1971, no. 64.

1978

  • American Luminism, Coe Kerr Gallery, New York, 1978, no. 29, repro.

1980

  • American Light: The Luminist Movement, National Gallery of Art, Washington, unnumbered catalogue.

2003

  • Hudson River School Visions: The Landscapes of Sandord R. Gifford, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth; National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2003-2004, no. 70.

2005

  • Encouraging American Genius: Master Paintings from the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Parrish Art Museum, Southampton NY; Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte NC; John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, 2005-2007, checklist no. 46.

2008

  • The American Evolution: A History through Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 2008, unpublished checklist.

  • Nature as Nation: 19th-Century American Landscapes from the Collection, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 30 August 2008-18 October 2009, unpublished checklist.

2009

  • American Paintings from the Collection, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 6 June-18 October 2009, unpublished checklist.

Bibliography

1882

  • Macleod, William. Catalogue of the Paintings, Statuary, Casts, Bronzes, &c. of the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Washington, 1882: 44, no. 15.

1887

  • Macleod, William. Catalogue of the Paintings, Statuary, Casts, Bronzes, &c. of the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Washington, 1887: 45, no. 15.

1947

  • Corcoran Gallery of Art. Handbook of the American Paintings in the Collection of the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Washington, 1947: 39.

2011

  • Kelly, Franklin. "Sanford Robinson Gifford, Ruins of the Parthenon." In Corcoran Gallery of Art: American Paintings to 1945. Edited by Sarah Cash. Washington, 2011: 11, 150-151, 269, repro.

Inscriptions

lower left: S.R. Gifford 1880

Wikidata ID

Q20188867

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