Love's Melancholy

Inscriptions

Signed recto, bottom-right corner, on grass, in brown paint: "Constant Mayer / 1866".

Provenance

The artist, New York. S. M. Schafer, by 1876. Private collection, Long Island; D. Wigmore Fine Art, New York, by 1994; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1994.

Exhibition history

Philadelphia, Memorial Hall and Art Annex, Centennial International Exhibition, May 10–Nov. 10, 1876, cat. 28 (organized by United States Centennial Commission, Philadelphia).

Publications

Eric Foner, “The Civil War and the Story of American Freedom,” Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 27, no. 1 (2001): 24, pl. 6 (ill.).

Quick Overview

Artist: Constant Mayer (American, born France, 1832–1911)
Date: 1866
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 51.4 × 35.6 cm (20 1/4 × 14 in.)
Type: Painting
Classification: painting
Place: United States
Department: Arts of the Americas
Credit line: Purchased with funds provided by Mrs. Herbert A. Vance
Accession no.: 1994.6

Data retrieved from the Art Institute of Chicago on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.