Rose Garden at Mount Vernon

Status

On view

Datec.1905

Artist John Ross Key (1832 - 1920)

Medium/TechniqueOil on artist's board, wood, gilding

DimensionsOverall (artist's board): 18 1/2 in. x 24 1/2 in. (46.99 cm x 62.23 cm) Overall (frame): 25 1/4 in. × 31 5/8 in. × 2 5/8 in. (64.14 cm × 80.33 cm × 6.67 cm)

Credit LineAcquired through the generosity of Jeanie Kilroy Wilson and Wallace S. Wilson in honor of John Bookout and Ann Bookout, Regent and Vice Regent for Texas, 2013

Object numberM-5314

DescriptionOil on artist’s board of the Upper Garden from inside one of the boxwood parterres facing east. The spinning house is visible in the background with two dormer windows. These windows were installed in 1894 when the outbuildings were used by the Ladies as quarters when attending Grand Council and removed sometime around 1952 when the building was restored. A walkway leads the viewer’s eye from the foreground to the focal point at the spinning house. To the proper left of the walkway is a boxwood hedge and a tree and to the proper left there are lush flowering plants growing in the garden plots. The two trees in the proper left are the same trees visible in period photographs of the Upper Garden. The beginning of a narrower path is visible in the proper left foreground. This path bisects the plot and also appears in period photographs.

The back of the artist’s board is covered with a gray ground on which the artist began work on another painting. Only a clump of trees and their trunks were painted. These trees do not match those on the front of the canvas.

The painting is held into the frame by four screws and brackets. The piece was framed by Richard Tobey, a Los Angeles framer in 2012. “RICHARD TOBEY/ LOS ANGELES” is burned into the proper right stile of the frame. A separate sticker on the top stile reads “The North Point Gallery/ 407 Jackson Street/ San Francisco, California 94111-1611.”

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