Autumn Trees, Fields and Brook with Queen Anne's Lace by Ben Foster, Amer., (1852-1920)

Watercolor, circa 1900, 6-1/4 x 11-1/4, fading to the blue sky and foreground fields, mat burn to edges from an old acidic mat, signed lower right in pencil, an abandoned watercolor landscape verso. Born in Maine, Ben Foster was a well respected tonalist painter who came to art late, studying by age 30  at the Art Student's League then in Paris in 1876-77. Foster longed for New England though, and settled in Cornwall Hollow, CT, where most of his landscape subjects were found, usually painted in muted autumnal earth tones as seen here. The Queen Anne's Lace flowering in the foreground is painted with a marvelous delicacy, and one can almost hear the wind rustle through the dry grasses of the fields.