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View of the Straits of Messina from a Country House

Niels Emil Severin Holm (Danish, 1823–1863)
1859

Medium/Technique Oil on canvas
Dimensions 82.5 x 130.8 cm (32 1/2 x 51 1/2 in.)
Credit Line Tompkins Collection—Arthur Gordon Tompkins Fund and funds donated by John Goelet
Accession Number1980.209
NOT ON VIEW
CollectionsEurope
ClassificationsPaintings
Trained in his native Denmark, Emil Holm was drawn to Italy, like many Northern European artists before him. This panoramic view of the vineyards and olive groves of Sicily looks across the Straits of Messina toward the Italian mainland. The scene is striking for its pervasive stillness, but the terrace, in deep afternoon shadow, shows evidence of recent human activity. Holm's meticulous technique and introspective mood are characteristic of what has come to be called the Golden Age of Danish painting.

InscriptionsLower left: N. Emil Holm, / Messina 1859
ProvenanceBy 1860, owned by wife of Councillor of State Broberg, Copenhagen. November 30, 1977, Anonymous sale, Sotheby's, London, lot 289. By 1979, John Goelet, New York. Hazlitt, Gooden and Fox, Ltd., London; 1980, sold by Hazlitt, Gooden and Fox to the MFA [see note 1]. (Accession Date: June 18, 1980)

NOTES:
[1] according to letter of June 5, 1980 from John Walsh of the MFA in curatorial file, the painting was purchased from Hazlitt, Gooden and Fox, even though it was Goelet who lent it to the museum in 1979.