This wonderful and sizable painting by Federic Rondel Sr is about 60″ x 30,” and is not without its condition issues. Evidence for prior restorations includes possible in-painting and several quite long vertical cuts throughout the painting where damage of some sort has been “buried” by a restorer’s hand but is not unseeable. Once de-fitting is complete, and we get it a look at the reverse, we will have a better understanding for the condition. We can tell, however, that the painting was re-lined at one point. The blacklight was used to quickly scan the surface to check for in-painting. A more thorough look will be carried out in our windowless, “examination” room. Stay tuned for more…

Frederick Rondel was born in Paris in 1826 but emigrated to America and was best remembered as being the only art teacher for Winslow Homer. He was also a successful landscape and marine painter who painted extensively throughout New England and as far as San Francisco. A recurrent subject matter for his paintings are views along the Hudson River.

Rondel’s New England landscapes and paintings of New York City were ultimately influenced by the romanticism of his teachers in Paris: Theodore Gudin and Auguste Jugelet (Jugelet himself being a pupil of Gudin).

It is known that in 1855 to 1857 Rondel was in Boston, having arrived from Europe, and one year later was in South Malden, Massachusetts, while concurrently keeping a New York City studio.
He was away from New York in Europe from 1862 to 1868, the duration of the Civil War, but returned to the city to be a faculty member at the National Academy of Design, where he had become an Associate member.

He exhibited at the National Academy, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia and the Boston Athenaeum.

Frederick Rondel died in 1892.