Wayside Farewell

Description

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Mort Künstler’s Comments

I have been asked for years when I will paint another romantic scene like Until We Meet Again. That painting has proved to be so popular that I have hesitated to attempt to paint a similar scene until I found equally powerful and moving. Wayside Farewell is, I believe, such a painting.

The scene is a Confederate cavalry officer saying good-bye to his wife. The setting is the Valley Pike in front of Larrick’s Hotel in Middletown, Virginia. The officer and his wife have spent the night at Larrick’s which is now the Wayside Inn, and are saying good-byes in the pre-dawn darkness as the cavalryman’s troops wait nearby. An attendant holds a team of horses hitched to a sleigh, which will take the young woman home when her husband and his men leave for war. It is a moving scene, which was reenacted repeatedly during the Civil War.

I have enjoyed so many visits to the Shenandoah Valley and the Winchester area that I consider the region to be my “hometown” in the South. Middletown’s Wayside Inn is one of my favorite places. It is such an interesting-looking structure. From thorough research, I have painted the building as I believe at appeared in the 1860’s. In the extreme left background we see the Sperry house and store, and in the center background is Richard’s Tavern. The sign, lamp post and gate of the hotel are based on wartime sketches by J.E. Taylor. Dr. James I. Robertson, Jr., the “dean” of Civil War historians, informed me that a four-inch snowfall covered the Middletown region on February 3, 1862, which is the time in which I placed the painting. Countless tender moments like this one occurred throughout the war, and I hope Wayside Farewell represents them well.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]