Ambassador and Mrs. Joseph Verner Reed, Jr. were avid collectors of both the fine and decorative arts, with a honed aesthetic sensibility and a love for all things beautiful. It is not surprising that they collected botanical and landscape watercolors, covering the walls of their homes with delicate flowers, Anglo-Indian botanical specimens, and landscape views of Morocco, where Mr. Reed served as Ambassador from 1981 to 1985. The watercolor medium lends itself to the ephemerality of nature, allowing artists to use its transparent nature to create the layered effects of color and the fleeting delicacy of flower petals and blooms.
Watercolor in some form has been used by artists throughout the history of art. Egyptians used water-based paints to decorate tombs and write on papyrus leaves, Chinese and Japanese masters painted with watercolor on silk and delicate handmade papers, and in the Middle East, India and Persia, opaque watercolor was used to create illustrated manuscripts and religious miniatures. Watercolor painting is defined as painting with water-soluble pigments on paper. As important as the pigments themselves is the paper support, and the development of the watercolor tradition in Britain in the late eighteenth century was based heavily on the production of higher quality paper for use by watercolorists. The British dominated watercolor painting during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as the Empire grew and artists and map makers travelled. Watercolor lends itself well to travel, becoming an easy way to record landscapes and cultural scenery while abroad. British companies began to produce specialized watercolor paper, and in 1846, the iconic firm Winsor & Newton developed pigment colors in tubes that artists could easily carry with them. American artists living or travelling in Europe in the nineteenth century became aware of the medium and were interested in experimenting with watercolor, free of the rigid English tradition. The American School was represented in the ground-breaking Armory Show of 1913 by watercolorists John Singer Sargent, John Marin, Maurice Prendergast and others.
The watercolor technique is difficult and can be unpredictable, lending to its sense of spontaneity and ability to capture a transitory moment or scene. The transparent color is layered on the paper in washes that give it a luminous surface, using the white of the paper as a white pigment. A color can be changed on the brush by diluting it further with water, allowing for improvisation that can be very successful in the hand of an accomplished watercolorist.
The Collection of Ambassador and Mrs. Joseph Verner Reed, Jr. has many fine examples of watercolor. Memories of Ambassador Reed’s sojourn in Morocco can be seen in several views of the North African country, including lot 67, Doodall’s A Camel and Driver, lot 70, Ellis’s Tangier, lot 71, Baskerville’s Sunset in Fez, and lot 72, Clairin’s A Bedouin Figure.
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Two Gruber botanicals exemplify the complexity and beauty of watercolor with gouache, lot 3, Paeonia Arboria and lot 91, Cattleya Labiata Brasil.
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Lot 1, Still Life with Grapes and Peaches, is a fine example of a watercolor still life by French watercolorist Jean-Louis Prévost.
Other highlights include:
