These two duck paintings by Arthur Schneider (1866-1942) came in with heavy contaminations of smoke and dirt particulates. Ducks Landing has a shellac covering that has turned brown and started to run. Ducks and Snipes has a few fingerprints along the right edge that appear to have been done in paint, and two significant dents in the paint canvas. Once cleaned, we expect these paintings to look significantly better; early tests have lifted significant amounts of contaminates. Unfortunately, though, none of the steps we will need to take involves a water bath.
Born in 1866, Arthur E. Schneider was an American painter and illustrator from Madison, WI. He was best known for his landscapes and his Orientalist genre scenes depicting village streets, children and Arabs. He trained in New York City and Europe.
Schneider was to become the court painter to the Sultan of Morocco, Mulai Abd-ul-Aziz (abdelaziz of Morocco) [1878-1943]. He travelled to the country in November of 1900 and stayed until March, 1902. He took several other trips to Morocco, including one in 1905, in which he painted the Sultan’s portrait. In 1908, he built a painting studio in the Sultan’s garden. Schneider would travel with the Sultan to various cities including Tangiers and Fez, documenting the trip in watercolor sketches published by Century Magazine in 1903. The paintings were highly detailed and had a near-photographic quality, and had ironic names like “The Sultan and Play,” where the Sultan was playing pool.
Between 1905 and 1913, Schneider lived and worked in New York City. He moved around and was known to have lived and worked in Cleveland, Chicago, Tampa, FL, and Boston, MA.
He exhibited at the Salmagundi Club, American Watercolor Society, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Boston Art Club, the National Academy of Design, and the Art Club. Schneider was a member of the American Watercolor Society in New York City, the Salmagundi Club, and The Art Club. His work is in the permanent collection of Whistler House Museum of Art in Lowell, MA.
Schneider died February 7, 1942.
