Catalog entry

Commentary

A visual guide to the drawing

This drawing is probably the surviving middle part of the work on paper that was the basis for Lane’s painting Gloucester Harbor, 1847 (inv. 23). From the irregularly cut edges on all four sides, it is evident that this section was crudely separated from its adjoining parts for reasons now forgotten. Based on similar drawings by Lane, it seems likely that the whole drawing was made on three sheets that were glued together. If so, the glued edges are no longer part of this segment, leaving in question its original dimensions and those of the adjoining sections.

As with Lane’s other drawings of port scenes, very few vessels are included, leaving types of watercraft and their placement to be decided after the setting was painted on the canvas. The few vessels included probably served as gauges of size relative to distance. Two very small examples are at far right, near the horizon line; there may have been others in the missing segments. Two faint perspective lines (1A and 1B) converge at a vanishing point (1C), and would have been used to gauge the sizes of the schooners in the painting’s right middle ground. Those vessels’ dimensions could then be transferred to points at corresponding distances for vessels on the painting’s left side.

The only significant vessel in this fragment of the drawing is the brig coming to anchor on the far side of Ten Pound Island (2). Being proportionately larger than the two depicted schooners, the perspective lines do not work for this vessel’s dimensions. Either Lane guessed her dimensions or, more likely, drew the vessel as seen, using the buildings on Ten Pound Island as a gauge for dimensions.

At far right (3) is the wharf of Frederick G. Low at the head of Duncan’s Point on the east side of Harbor Cove. Low owned two other wharves in Harbor Cove and much of the land on Duncan’s Point, including the plot that Lane purchased for the house he built, not long after he painted the picture based on this drawing.

Harbor Rock (4) was a prominent obstacle to navigation off Duncan’s Point, and was variously marked with warning beacons—in this case an elevated wooden platform.  It was eventually built over as wharves were extended further out into the harbor in the late nineteenth century.

Ten Pound Island (5) lies just beyond Rocky Neck (6) and Black Rocks, which extend from the Neck. Five Pound Island (7), its three fish shacks, and its flake yard (to left of the shacks) is the most finished aspect of this part of the drawing and the visual center, both in this drawing and the painting.

– Erik Ronnberg

Related Work in the Catalog

Supplementary Images

Photo: Marcia Steele
© Cape Ann Museum