DeWitt Boutelle after Thomas Cole: The Voyage of Life From the Manoogian Collection

The suite of four paintings representing an allegory of man’s earthly journey, (Childhood, Youth, Manhood, Old Age) by itinerant painter DeWitt Clinton Boutelle (1820 -1884), bears the unmistakable influence of painters Thomas Cole (1801- 1848) and Asher Durand (1796-1886). In fact, Boutelle was commissioned to paint the complete full sized copy of the elder artist’s much-celebrated Voyage of Life for sending over to Europe to be engraved in the highest style of modern art. 

Curiously, artist Thomas Cole’s signature appear inscribed on these artworks alongside Boutelle’s, indicating that the latter was acknowledging the existence of Cole’s hand, however tentative, in the finished paintings.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website