| Date: About one in ten paintings appearing in this catalog carries a date inscribed by the artist. With limited available information concerning the artist's history, a chronology of the remainder would be guesswork at best. This inventory lists dates without qualification only when inspection of the painting or a good reproduction reveals a date inscribed on the painting or its back in a reliable hand. The notation "n.d." or "undated" means that inspection of the painting revealed no inscribed date. For paintings that have not been personally inspected, "probably n.d." means that both recto and verso inscriptions were reported by someone else but no date was mentioned; "said to be n.d." means that the report specifically said no date was found. In some cases it is possible to suggest a date or approximate date by virtue of knowledge of Schafer's travels or from information in the scene itself; when this is the case, the Notes entry explains.
Medium: In cases where the original painting has not been personally examined, this catalog simply repeats without comment the medium and support as described in the references. When it is known that a painting has been lined or laid down a note to that effect appears, but absence of such mention does not assure that the painting has not been lined.
Size: All dimensions are reported height first, both in inches then (in parentheses) in centimeters. Many citations give dimensions to small fractions of an inch, but for dimensions over 24 inches different measurers usually disagree on the fraction. For this reason, the catalog reports dimensions only to the nearest inch or centimeter. As a general rule, even where the original was available for examination, the size reported by the owner or the citations has not been verified unless it is obviously incorrect. When there are dramatic disagreements on the dimensions of a painting, this fact is noted under Identification because it may indicate that the sources are actually reporting different paintings. |