loading 
Fitz Henry Lane
HISTORICAL ARCHIVE • CATALOGUE RAISONNÉ • EDUCATIONAL RESOURCE
An online project under the direction of the CAPE ANN MUSEUM
An online project under the direction of the CAPE ANN MUSEUM
Catalog entry
|
inv. 176
North Westerly View of Mount Desert Rock
1852 Graphite on paper 10 1/4 x 16 in. (26 x 40.6 cm) Inscribed across bottom (in pencil): North Westerly View of Mt. Desert Rock Aug 1852 / Taken from deck of Sloop Superior at anchor. F.H.Lane del.; Inscribed lower left (in pencil): Lane / Witherle / Tilden / Stevens / Adams
|
Verso
Related Work in the Catalog
Supplementary Images
Digital reconstruction combining the two segments of Lane's drawing inv.176
Photo: © Cape Ann Museum
Provenance (Information known to date; research ongoing.)
the Artist, Gloucester, Mass.
Joseph L. Stevens, Jr., Gloucester, Mass.
Samuel H. Mansfield, Gloucester, Mass.
Cape Ann Museum, Gloucester, Mass., 1927
Marks & Labels
Marks: Inscribed upper left (in red ink): 13 [numbering system used by curator A. M. Brooks upon Samuel H. Mansfield's donation of the drawings to the Cape Ann Museum]
Exhibition History
No known exhibitions.Published References
Paintings and Drawings by Fitz Hugh Lane. Gloucester, MA: Cape Ann Historical Association, 1974., fig. 110.
Wilson Museum. "A Cruise with Fitz Hugh Lane." Wilson Museum Bulletin vol. 2 no.2 (Winter 1974-75). ⇒ includes 
text
text
Wilmerding, John. "Fitz Hugh Lane." The Artist's Mount Desert: American Painters on the Maine Coast. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994, pp. 45–67., fig. 46, p.53. ⇒ includes text
text
Commentary
In 1852 Joseph Stevens Jr. and Lane set out on a multi-day excursion on board sloop "Superior" from Castine. This trip was documented by fellow passenger, William Witherle, in his diary (below).
This drawing was made while the “Superior" was anchored off the north end of Mount Desert Rock, as related in Witherle’s account. This location of Lane’s viewing point was confirmed by matching buildings, shore line, and rock formations to their counterparts in aerial photographs as well as satellite photos in north-south alignment. No detailed survey map of Mount Desert Rock in a usable scale could be found. Depictions of this site on navigation charts proved useless, so small and vaguely was it outlined.
“Superior’s" party landed on Mount Desert Rock at noon, Wednesday, August 18. They spent the early afternoon talking to the light keeper, examining the wreck of a schooner (seen in both of Lane’s drawings), exploring the rocky terrain, and observing active marine life. By mid-afternoon, they were back on board “Superior”, making their way north to Mount Desert Island.
In making this drawing, Lane found the left margin too confining and was forced to draw the rock’s western shore detached and superimposed above the eastern three quarters, a problem now solved by the supplementary image below. A painting based on the drawing (#275) surfaced in the mid 1980's in excellent condition. The painting was executed in August 1855, three years after Lane did the drawing.
—Erik Ronnberg