A view of Laurelton Hall, Louis Comfort Tiffany's opulent Long Island estate, painted by Richard Hayley Lever (1876-1958) in gouache on paper.
Laurelton Hall, completed in 1905, was one of Louis C. Tiffany's architectural masterpieces and housed many of his most important works in leaded glass. The building later became the site of the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, established in 1918 by Louis Comfort Tiffany as a retreat for artists and craftsmen; it is likely that Lever painted this scene of the building during a stay at the Foundation. The magnificent building was tragically lost in a fire in 1957, though architectural fragments can be seen in the permanent collections of the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art in Winter Park, Florida, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Lever, an Australian-American painter, emigrated to the United States in 1912 and fell in with "The Eight," a group of artists including Maurice Prendergast, Robert Henri, William Glackens and other influential figures, known for painting expressive scenes of everyday life. Lever taught art classes at the Art Students League of New York and later became a member of the National Academy of Design. His work is represented in the permanent collections of The White House, the Brooklyn Museum, the Detroit Institute of Arts, and the Hirshorn Museum, among other institutions. Signed lower right.
Height: 17 inches (43 cm)
Width: 13 1/2 inches (34 cm)
Framed