Theodore Earl Butler - Reading

Pastel by Theodore Earl Butler (1861-1936) featuring children reading.

Rare work by this American Impressionist master.

Pastel dimensions: 21.5 x 28.5 cm. Gilded frame.

Installed in Giverny at the end of the 19th century, Butler first visited the site in the summer of 1888. He would play a central role in the exchanges between Claude Monet and the community of American painters present in the village, and would successively marry two of Monet's daughters-in-law, Suzanne and Marthe Hoschedé. He thus exhibited regularly at the Salon in Paris, and despite a period in New York between 1913 and 1921, where he presented several paintings at the 1913 Armory Show, the couple returned to settle in Giverny, where Butler died in 1936.

This scene is typical of the artist's production. It shows two children reading, probably her children James and Lily Butler, in an intimate and moving atmosphere.

Provenance: artist's family; by descent