Joseph Rusling Meeker
(American, 1827-1887)

"Bayou at Twilight"

oil on canvas
signed lower right, a "Morton's Auction" label and "McCaughen & Burr, Fine Arts, St. Louis, MO" stamp en verso.
Framed.
20" x 15", framed 28" x 23"

Provenance: McCaughen & Burr Inc., St. Louis, Missouri; Morton's Auction, New Orleans, Louisiana.

Notes: As a paymaster for the U.S. Navy, Joseph Rusling Meeker spent the Civil War aboard a ship as it traveled down the Mississippi River. Previously, Meeker had earned a scholarship to the National Academy of Design and studied with famed Hudson River Valley school painter Asher B. Durand. In his spare time aboard the ship, Meeker observed and made sketches of the bayous, swamps and waterways at different times of the day. After the war, Meeker reopened his St. Louis, Missouri studio and painted luminous southern landscapes from his sketches.

**Previously restored and relined, retaining original stretcher bars, metal keys and tacking edges. Toning of the varnish layer; cracquelure pattern visible; signs of inpainting lower center (water); upper left (leaves); varnish applied over signature and fluoresces green under UV light; appears to be a few drips of varnish lower/mid left.