Page 281 - Eye of the beholder

Despite the fact the he was deeply entrenched in academicism, the representation of the human forms appear to be stunted in proportions, as many of them have large head heads and short bodies. The brush strikes are obvious as the paint is roughly and sketchily applied in the tradition of the Impressionist painters, as the main aim was to capture the immediacy of the moment and the play of light on architecture and human forms. Nevertheless it is a striking painting that invites scrutiny of its many details that Week has lovingly rendered.
According to the collector Anirban Sadhu, “I bought this painting from a dealer in London, who sold it as being attributed to Edwin Lord Weeks. If this attribution is true, of course it would be worth a few hundred thousand dollars. But the painting does not have a clear signature, though undoubtedly it is by a very good hand. I think that the canvas has been cut sometime in the past, which probably led to the disappearance of the signature. The date, the subject otherwise support the attribution to Edwin Lord Week’s”.
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