The present work depicts what was once a silver maple tree, cut down in order to allow Andrew and Betsy Wyeth to add a kitchen addition to their house.  At the time, the Wyeths lived with their two sons in a converted schoolhouse next door to the N.C. Wyeth home where Andrew Wyeth had been born and raised.  A large silver maple stood in the yard behind, and was felled when the Wyeths expanded the house to create a new kitchen.  Up until his death, the schoolhouse served as the artist’s Chadds Ford studio.



The present work was given to a close friend of the Wyeths in 1954, and has not changed hands (nor been exhibited) in the more than half-century since it was presented.   



This watercolor will be included in Betsy James Wyeth's forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the artist's work.

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