CHILDE HASSAM (1859-1935)
Provenance
Private Collection, Philadelphia, since early 1920sPrivate Collection, New York, 1997
Private Collection, Massachusetts
Private Collection
Literature
Hollis Taggart Gallery, Recent Acquisitions Spring 1998, New York, 1998, p. 42The painting reflects Hassam’s gift for portraying people interacting naturally with their surroundings, a hallmark of his finest works. Here he captures not only the activity of the booksellers but also the shifting atmosphere of the city itself, conveyed through soft dabs of paint that suggest autumn leaves floating gently through the air and settling along the foreground. This delicate blending of human presence, weather, and light reveals Hassam’s deep interest in the transient beauty of urban life and marks Booksellers by the Seine as an evocative example from an essential period in his artistic development.

