Rating and value of paintings by Conrad Wise Chapman

If you own a work by or based on the work of artist Conrad Wise Chapman and would like to know its value, our state-approved experts and auctioneers will guide you.

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Artist's rating and value

American landscape painter, Conrad Wise Chapman is making a name for himself on the art market. The prices his works are fetching are flying off the auctioneers' hammers, ranging from €110 to €264,000, a considerable range but one that speaks volumes about the value that can be attributed to Chapman's works.

His oil on panel City of Mexico from the hacienda de los morales was auctioned for €264,000, while it was estimated at between €190,000 and €235,000. 

Order of value ranging from the simplest to the most prestigious work

The artist's style and technique

Conrad Wise Chapman is a painter of war and landscape. He is best known for his depictions of the Civil War, particularly on the Confederate side, but also for his European and South American landscapes.

His painting is realistic yet sensitive, his style combining documentary precision with a poetic, atmospheric touch, particularly in his treatment of light and nature.

He received classical training abroad (in France, England and Italy) and inherited a European academic tradition in the treatment of drawing and composition.

His drawing is structured and meticulous, the elements clearly defined, with a good command of perspective and volume, particularly in military architecture. His palette is natural and balanced, using earthy tones, soft greens and grays, often enlivened by golden or twilight.

He takes great care with skies and atmospheres, always remaining attentive to daylight, meteorological effects, mist, and sunset, in the tradition of American luminism.

The artist produces a lot of small-format oil : many of his military works have wood panels or small canvases as their support, sometimes on the ground, which helps to give them an impression of spontaneity and immediacy.

His compositions are generally fairly balanced, his canvases presenting a clear structure, with well-marked focal points (a fort, a column of smoke, a lone soldier) in a fairly calm, silent setting.

His war painting is unemphatic, and contrary to the heroic tradition, Chapman often shows calm, suspended, even melancholy scenes.

He brings the eye of a witness, painting what he has seen (fortifications, military landscapes), with great visual fidelity, without renouncing a contemplative dimension.

In this way, he establishes a strong link between art and memory, his works serving to document places threatened with destruction or moments of historical transition, giving his work a heritage value.

The life of Conrad Wise Chapman

Conrad Wise Chapman (1842 - 1910) was born in Washington D.C. He was the son of American painter John Gadsby Chapman, known for his historical and religious scenes.

He grew up in Europe and spent much of his youth in Italy, in Rome, where his father worked. This country and its painting were to have a strong influence on his artistic outlook. He studied painting in Rome and Paris under Léon Bonnat, but also in London, where he absorbed the influences of the classical tradition and European schools.

Returning to the United States in 1861, he enlisted in the Confederate Army, in the Kentucky Light Infantry Regiment. He was posted to Charleston, South Carolina. In 1863, he was commissioned by General Beauregard to produce a series of paintings depicting the Confederate fortifications around the harbor.

His military work is unique; he executed some forty war views, often on wood or small-format canvas, which constitute one of the rare painted visual testimonies of the interior of the Confederate lines.

After the war, he returned to Europe and pursued his painting career, mainly in Rome, Paris and London. He also traveled to South America, staying in Cuba and Mexico, where he painted tropical landscapes, rural scenes as well as views of daily life.

He was exhibited at the National Academy of Design in New York, and in various salons in Europe, but remained marginal compared to the great figures of his time.

The artist died in 1910 in Hampton, Virginia. His military work was long forgotten and is now held in various collections, including the Museum of Confederacy in Richmond, and studied as a rare testimony to the Southern point of view.

His life oscillates between two continents (Europe and America), giving his work a unique blend of documentary realism.

Today, his work is prized alongside the greatest military painters, such as Édouard Detaille, Franz Defregger or Adolphe Baumgartner Stoiloff.

Focus on Fort Sumter, 1863, Conrad Wise Chapman

Conrad Wise Chapman created one of his most famous works with Fort Sumter. This is an iconic fortification in Charleston harbor, in ruins after violent Union bombardments.

This work is painted in the field, created from sketches made in situ during his military assignment in 1863. It is a unique testimony, one of the few contemporary representations of this strategic site, seen from inside the Confederate lines.

The organization of the canvas is clear: the fort occupies the center of the composition, surrounded by debris, cannons and sandbags, in a slightly elevated perspective. The human presence is discreet, with a few Confederate soldiers appearing in the scene, but without being individualized. They are silhouettes that are absorbed into the environment.

The sky is dominant and takes up a large space in the image, with heavy clouds and diffused lighting, reinforcing the mood of suspended tension. The format is modest, an oil painting on wood panel, typical of his war work, allowing for quick, transportable work.

The work is highly documentary in its precision, as each element (cannons, gutted walls, sandbags) is accurately represented, with a concern for visual fidelity. The palette he uses is quite muted, containing tones of gray, brown, olive green, slate blue, which constitute a matte, realistic harmony that reflects the gravity of the scene.

An atmosphere of loneliness and desolation emerges from the scene : the fort, half-destroyed, seems to both hold together and collapse, symbolizing the fragility of the Confederacy. The silence is heavy : the absence of action, the empty horizon and the cold light create an atmosphere of calm, or resignation.

This is a war painting without heroism, without spectacular drama, without charge or blood, just a sober, human vision of a place in the process of dying out.

His signature

Although there are variations, here's a first example of his signature:

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