1990s Rabbits Impressionist Lavender and Terracotta Watercolor by Elvera Spivey

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This is a picture carried by its palette. Elvera Spivey, a watercolorist who exhibited with the Sunshine Gallery cooperative in … Read more This is a picture carried by its palette. Elvera Spivey, a watercolorist who exhibited with the Sunshine Gallery cooperative in Friday Harbor on San Juan Island, Washington, sets two crouching rabbits against a ground of warm terracotta and ochre and models their fur in cool lavender gray, slate and sage. The lilac shadows sit directly against the warm earth tones, which pushes the animals forward and gives them a volume the loose, impressionistic handling would otherwise dissolve. Spattered pigment and dragged strokes at either end carry the eye across the long horizontal sheet.

The painting is signed “E. Spivey” in brown at lower right and dates from the 1990s. The backing retains a Sunshine Gallery label and a hand-lettered sheet in which the gallery’s members introduce the artist as a New Orleans native who came to Friday Harbor from a studio in Barrington, Illinois; the sheet carries a reproduced photograph of her and a handwritten birthday inscription to a previous owner. The sight size is 28 by 10 inches, and the work is presented in its original cream double mat in a glazed silver aluminum Nielsen frame.

Photographs were white-balanced to a gray card under daylight-balanced lighting; colors may display slightly differently across screens. See less