1.  Rembrandt Self Portrait 1633 (Copy)

Oil on canvas, Oval 23 ¾ x 19 ¾ in.
c. 1887 – 89, Paris, France
Unsigned
Private Collection, Austin, Texas

As was the tradition, art students copied the masters.  Anna copied this portrait during her student days in Paris, at the Louvre Museum ^[1].  Anna painted three long periods in the Netherlands, and may have done this in preparation for her Holland work.

2.  Two Children in a Cart

Also called THE FRENCH SISTERS
Oil on canvas, 21 ½ x 17 ¼ in.
c. 1888 – 89, France
Signed lower right; Anna Stanley
Private Collection, South Hamilton, Massachusetts

3.  Boy and Girl at Window

Oil on canvas, 20 x 16 in.
c. 1888 – 89, or 1895 Rijsoord, Netherlands
Unsigned
Private Collection, Darien, Connecticut

4.  Windmill

Oil on canvas, 14 x 10 in.
c. 1888 – 89, or 1895, Rijsoord, Netherlands
Signed lower right; Anna Stanley Holland (unclear)
Private Collection, Escondido, California

5.  Houses By a Canal

Oil on canvas, 16 x 13 in.
c. 1888 – 89, or 1895, Rijsoord, Netherlands
Signed lower right; Anna Stanley Holland (unclear)
Private Collection, Escondido, California

6.  The Milkmaid (Study)

Oil on board, 9 ¾ x 6 in.
c. 1888 – 89, Rijsoord, Netherlands
Unsigned
Private Collection, Austin, Texas

7.  The Milkmaid

Oil on canvas, 21 ½ x 17 ¼ in.
Signed lower left; Anna Stanley Holland
c. 1888 – 89, Rijsoord, Netherlands
Private Collection, Bethesda, Maryland

It is not known how & when this painting came to be in Lil’s, (Anna’s sister) possession.  In her will, Anna designated only one painting bequest, I have no treasure to leave my brother Dave but would like him to choose from my paintings one he likes.  We know he received a painting because of two signed receipts, but no identification or description of the painting(s) is indicated. Anna may simply have given this painting to Lil when she was living.

8.  Girl in Dutch Cap

Oil on canvas, 13 x 11 ¼ in.
c. 1888 – 89, or 1895, Rijsoord, Netherlands
Unsigned
Private Collection, Austin, Texas

9.  Landscape with Windmills

Also called ROAD BY A CANAL
Oil on canvas, 16 x 21 ½ in.
c. 1888 – 89, or 1895, Rijsoord, Netherlands
Signed lower right; Anna Stanley
On Loan: US Army – Fort Sam Houston Museum, San Antonio, Texas

10.  Road by a Canal

Oil on canvas, 16 ¼ x 22 ¼ in.
c. 1895, Rijsoord, Netherlands
Signed lower right; Anna Stanley
Private Collection, South Hamilton, Massachusetts

11.  Girl Carrying Sheaves

Also called HARVEST – HOLLAND
Oil on canvas 18 x 24 in.
c. 1895, Rijsoord, Netherlands
Signed lower right; Anna Stanley
Private Collection, South Hamilton, Massachusetts

Typical of the region, this girl carries the local harvest of flax, used to make linen and most of the clothing worn in the region.

12.  Girl with a Winnowing Basket

Also called SAND SIFTER
Oil on canvas, 31 ½ x 25 ½ in.
c. 1895, Rijsoord, Netherlands
Signed lower right; Anna Stanley
Private Collection, Austin, Texas

13.  Summer

Also called DUTCH BRIDE
Oil on canvas, 61 x 36 in.
c. 1895, Rijsoord, Netherlands
Signed lower right; Anna Stanley
On Loan: Army Distaff Foundation, Inc.
Washington, DC

14.  Portrait: Gen. Stanley

(David Sloan Stanley)
Oil on canvas, 31 ½ x 27 ¾ in.
c. 1890, Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio, Texas
Signed lower right; Anna Stanley 1890
Private Collection, Washington, DC

This portrait of the artist’s father, aged sixty-two, was painted after she studied for two years in Europe.  The painting was completed near the end of her father’s service as the commanding general of the Texas Territory at Fort Sam Houston.  Anna returned to Texas, in November 1889 where this was likely painted.  Although the portrait is formal and a departure from her impressionist style, she confers on her father the deference that his place in history deserved as a Medal of Honor recipient.

15.  Portrait: Gen. Stanley

(David Sloan Stanley)
Oil on canvas, 26 ¼ x 24 1/8 in.
c. 1891, Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio, Texas
Signed: Upper left Anna Stanley 1891
The Army and Navy Club, Washington, DC

General Stanley was a founding member & early president of the Army and Navy Club.  In 1923, his son Col. David Sheridan Stanley gave this portrait to the club.  In 2007, the artist’s grand- daughters happily discovered the portrait as they passed by it at the club on their way to a luncheon.  They restored the painting in 2008.

16.  Portrait: Cadet

(David Sheridan Stanley)
Oil on canvas, 59 x 35 in.
c. 1893, Washington, DC
Signed: Lower right Anna Stanley
Private Collection, Washington, DC

The subject of the portrait is the artist’s brother, who graduated from the US Military Academy at West Point in 1895. He would have received his grey cadet uniform in 1892 at the end of the first school year. Anna exhibited the painting in 1894 in Washington, DC, but no price is listed. She attended her brother’s graduation in June 1895, where she met her future husband, Lt. Willard Ames Holbrook, a West Point instructor. Oddly, Anna had not met Holbrook before, when he had been Aide-de-Camp to her father in Texas from 1891 – 92. The portrait appeared as a bequest in Gen. David Sloan Stanley’s will & was passed to his son David Sheridan Stanley, along with the portrait Anna painted of the General in 1890.

17.  Spring House

Watercolor, 5 x 5 ½ in.
c. 1899 – 1901, 1905 – 07, Blackwell’s Farm, Warrenton, Virginia
Unsigned – reverse side inscription: Spring House Blackwell
Private Collection, Austin, Texas

The Rumbough family often visited the Edwin Blackwell family at Blackwell Farm, near Warrenton, VA. Willard Ames Holbrook, Jr. remembered visiting the farm as a very young child.  It is believed that Anna visited the farm a few times.  The actual Spring House is still intact just a few hundred feet from the main house.  Anna learned watercolor painting in the West after she was married, which narrows the date of this work to after 1898 ^[2]. Presumably she would have visited the farm while staying at her father’s home in Washington, D.C.  Today, the property is called Clifton Farm and belongs to the Airlie Foundation and is dedicated to the study of swans.

18.  Portrait: Girl Reading

Also called STUDY OF A GIRL
Oil on canvas, 24 x 18 ¼ in.
c. 1892 – 1894, Napanock, NY
Unsigned
Private Collection, Austin, Texas

The subject of the portrait is thought to be one of Anna’s closest friends and artist – Lena Dohn of Chicago (Pauline Dohn, later Rudolph).  Photographs of Lena show a clear resemblance to the girl in the portrait.  A photograph of Anna carrying this canvas, (probably summer 1893) was taken in Napanock, NY, a small mill town in upstate New York that was an artist colony during the summers.  In the 1894 Nat’l Academy of Design Annual Exhibition the painting was entered in the Dodge competition for best painting done in the United States… leading one to believe that it was not painted in Europe.  As friends at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Anna & Lena lived together in Paris while attending the Julian Académie and traveled to Holland with other artist friends in the summer of 1888.  They remained close for the rest of their lives. Anna bequeathed Lena a piece of jewelry, the only person outside her family named in her will.  Their husbands were close friends and her sons Willard Ames Holbrook, Jr. and David Stanley Holbrook knew Lena.

19.  Arizona Landscape

Oil on canvas, 7 x 13 in.
c. 1896 – 98, or 1903 – 05, Arizona
Unsigned
Private Collection, Austin, Texas

20.  Arizona Desert

Watercolor, 7 ¾ x 10 ¾ in.
c. 1897 – 98, or 1903 – 05, Arizona
Signed lower left; Anna Stanley Holbrook
Private Collection, Austin, Texas

21.  Path to Cottage

Oil on board, 9 ½  x 12 ¾ in.
c. 1896 – 98, or 1903 – 05, Arizona
Signed lower right; Anna Stanley
Private Collection, Austin, Texas

22.  Girl Spinning

Also called THE SPINNING WHEEL
Oil on canvas, 20 x 16 ½ in.
c. 1896 – 97, Fort. Grant, Arizona
Unsigned
Private Collection, Austin, Texas

The artist and Willard Ames Holbrook, Sr. married October 1, 1896.  They were posted in December to Fort Grant in Arizona.  Anna painted Girl Spinning and apparently sent it to her family, (father and sisters…Josephine and Blanche) in Washington, DC, where it was included in the Society of Washington Artists, April 5 – 10 1897, Exhibition at the Cosmos Club.

23.  Manila Rice Paddy

Oil on board, 8 x 9 in.
c. 1901 – 03, Philippines
Unsigned
Private Collection, Austin, Texas

24.  Filipina Child

Oil on canvas, 11 x 8 in.
c. 1901 – 02, Philippines
Unsigned
Private Collection, New York, New York

25.  Governor’s House, San Jose, De Buenavista, Panay (with trees)

Oil on board, 6 ½ x 8 ¼ in.
c. 1901 – 02, Philippines
Unsigned
Private Collection, Austin, Texas

26.  Filipina Embroidering

Oil on canvas, 18 ¾ x 14 ¾ in.
c. 1901 – 02, Philippines
Unsigned
Private Collection, Austin, Texas

Based on Anna’s three paintings of the Governor’s house, this subject appears to have been painted in the Governor’s house, which Anna occupied when her husband, a ranking military officer was the Civil Governor of the Antique Province on the island of Panay after hostilities died down in 1901.  They lived in relative luxury according to Anna’s husband’s memoir, with two house servants, an American nanny, a coachman and cook.  They lived only on the second floor, which Willard felt protected his family from the elements.  This support allowed Anna time to devote to her painting. Photographs taken of the interior of the house reveal her walls covered in active work – including more works of this subject.  Notwithstanding this apparent housing luxury, Willard suffered from Malaria and the nanny Barbara contracted Dengue fever.  When Willard was discharged from the civilian post, the family moved to Camp Stotsenburg, in the province of Pampanga, on the island of Luzon some 40 miles north of Manila where they lived in a tent.  Camp Stotsenburg eventually became Clark Air Force Base.

27.  Governor’s House, Panay, Philippines

Watercolor, 7 ¼ x 6 ½ in.
c. 1901 – 02, Philippines
Unsigned
Private Collection, Austin, Texas

29.  Sailboats at Sunset / Iloilo

Watercolor, 6 x 9 in.
c. 1901 – 03, Philippines
Unsigned
Private Collection, Austin, Texas

30.  Iloilo Prison

Oil on board, 8 x 9 in.
c. 1901 – 03, Philippines
Unsigned
Private Collection, Austin, Texas

31.  Buddha, Nikko, Japan

Watercolor, 8 ½ x 7 ½ in.
c. 1903, Nikko, Japan
Signed lower right; Anna Stanley Holbrook
Private Collection, Austin, Texas

32.  Pagoda

Also called RED TEMPLE
Watercolor, 10 ½ x 9 in.
c. 1903, Nikko, Japan
Unsigned
Private Collection, Austin, Texas

According to General Willard Ames Holbrook, Sr.’s memoir, he took Anna on a trip to Korea and Japan when he was stationed in the Philippines.  It was at this time that Anna painted these two Japanese watercolors, (the medium of choice for traveling artists).  Other references have said that Anna painted these when her returning Army transport to the US stopped in Japan.  She returned to the US with her children and their nanny, while her husband and brother-law, Lucius Roy Holbrook traveled months later with troops.

33.  Old Spanish Fort

Watercolor, 7 ½ x 10 ¼ in.
c. 1901 – 03, Philippines
Unsigned
Private Collection, Austin, Texas

34.  Panay, Philippines: House with Child at Gate

Watercolor, 7 x 9 in.
c. 1901 – 02
Signed lower right; Anna Stanley Holbrook
Private Collection South Hamilton, Massachusetts

1. Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr. Senior Painting Curator, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC confirmed that Rembrandt Self Portrait 1633 was present in the Lourve Museum in the late 19th Century.

2. An undesignated newspaper clipping from Anna’s personal scrapbook notes that she took a class after she was married and her teacher is amazed at her talent, which she previously had not disclosed.