Henry Ossawa TannerAmerican, 1859–1937Abraham's Oak
May one see it?
Unknown
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Washington, D.C., United States
The owner is known; whether it is on view today is not.
- In this state since
- Source
- The museum
About the painting
Abraham's Oak is a painting by Henry Ossawa Tanner, an American painter who lived in France, completed about 1905. While Tanner is well known today for two paintings in the United States, The Banjo Lesson and The Thankful Poor, both about African-American families, the bulk of his artwork, including some of his most iconic paintings, were concerned with exploring biblical subjects. Abraham's Oak was supposed to be a place where Abraham pitched his tent and built an altar to God, who had promised the Land of Canaan for him and his children, and where he was visited by an angel.
Read on
Tanner may have visited the famous oak during a trip to the Middle East. At the time of his visit, the tree was in serious decline, its trunk supported with props and mostly leafless. However, Tanner collected at least one postcard of the tree, a painting by Johann Friedrich Perlberg and revisited the tree in memory, several years after a visit sometime in 1897-1899. It would number among many paintings of trees in the "nocturnal light."
The painting is an example of Tanner's frequent painting of subjects in the dim light of nighttime. Other similar works in which he used the technique to paint evening landscapes include Le Touquet, The Wise Men, Christ and his Disciples on the Road to Bethany, and The Good Shepherd.
Particulars
- Accession number
- 1983.95.185
What it shows
In the catalog
Sources
- Smithsonian American Art Museum
- Image: Smithsonian American Art Museum — CC0
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