Fortune (1901): Art, History and Details

Fortune (1901) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is John La Farge (American, 1835–1910).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

When commissioned in 1901 to make a stained glass window for the Frick office building in Pittsburgh, John La Farge produced this strange design of Fortune balancing precariously on a wheel—an emblem of the fickleness of fortune. The hazy, mysterious handling of the face of the central figure recalls contemporary French Symbolist painters such as Odilon Redon (1840–1916).

Object facts

• Title: Fortune
• Date: 1901
• Creator attribution: John La Farge (American, 1835–1910)
• Culture: America
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: graphite
• Dimensions: Sheet: 27.7 x 20 cm (10 7/8 x 7 7/8 in.)
• Collection: DR - American 19th Century
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 1950.316

Collection credit

Gift of William G. Mather

Further reading listed by the museum

• Ross, Barbara T. American Drawings in the Art Museum. Princeton University: 130 Selected Examples : [Exhibition]. Princeton, N.J.: [Art Museum, Princeton University], 1976.
• Foster, Kathleen A., Henry A. La Farge, H. Barbara Weinberg, Linnea H. Wren, James L. Yarnall, John La Farge, and Henry Adams. John La Farge: Essays. New York: The Abbeville Press, 1987.
• Yarnall, James L. John La Farge, Watercolors and Drawings. Yonkers, N.Y.: Hudson River Museum of Westchester, 1990.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.