Ilse Lanphere Oil on Canvas Panel, Rialto Bridge & Grand Canal, Venice View Watchlist >
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Lot # F736
System ID # 29425736
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Ilse Lanphere Oil on Canvas Panel, Rialto Bridge & Grand Canal, Venice, Mid-20th C.
A lively and confidently painted view of the Rialto Bridge over the Grand Canal, executed in oil on canvas panel in the naive-realist manner characteristic of Ilse Elizabeth Stauff Lanphere — German-born, self-taught, and settled in Las Cruces, New Mexico around 1960. The composition moves left to right across the canal: the arcaded stone bridge with its row of shop stalls occupies the left half, while the right bank is lined with pink and ochre palazzi, green-shuttered windows, striped market awnings, and a building facade reading "Mercato." A domed campanile rises against a cloud-streaked blue sky at upper right. In the foreground, a single gondola crosses turquoise water past a row of red-tipped mooring poles and striped candy-cane pilings — the genre details of a tourist-era Venice that places this work comfortably in the postwar decades.
The brushwork is direct and assured: dense impasto laid into the water and rooftops, the campanile built up in stacked strokes of cream and black, the bridge rendered with a flat linear confidence that sidesteps academic perspective in favor of clarity. Lanphere's compositions are known for exactly this quality — structural clarity and atmospheric restraint, drawn from lived observation rather than romantic convention. Her work circulated largely within private collections in Doña Ana County, where she lived and worked with her husband Robert; this panel is consistent with that regional collecting pattern. It is housed in a period beveled silvered wood frame with a woven linen liner and gilt inner fillet.
CONDITION
Good. The paint surface is stable with strong color throughout. A crease and bend to the top right corner of the canvas panel are noted. The frame shows minor handling wear to the silvered finish. No glass.
DIMENSIONS / SPECIFICATIONS
- Overall (framed): 13 1/8" H × 17 5/8" W × 2" D
- Visible image: 8 3/4" H × 11 1/4" W
- Medium: Oil on canvas panel
- Frame: Beveled silvered wood with woven linen liner and gilt inner fillet
- Glass: None
- Signature: Unmarked; no visible signature confirmed
