Catalog entry

Commentary

In the summer of 1850 Lane made his first-documented trip to Castine, Maine, the hometown of his friend Joseph Stevens, Jr. from Gloucester. This was the first of many such summer trips. In that year, Lane made a beautiful pencil drawing Castine from Fort George, 1850 (inv. 208) depicting Castine and Castine Harbor from the top of the hill upon which Castine is located. This painting, and a closely related work, Castine from Fort George, 1856 (inv. 404) both appear to be works based on that pencil drawing.

In this picture, Lane shows the landscape from Fort George, the Revolutionary fort which, at the time of his visit, was used by residents as a place for walking and picnicking. On the left, one can see the steeples of the two churches in Castine and the local school, while the long ropewalk building is shown in the right middle ground. The middle field shows two men haying, indicating that this is a late-summer scene, which is consistent with the dates of Lane’s visit.

In the foreground are seven figures. Three of them appear to be children playing in the grass while a well-dressed male figure (presumably their father) looks on.  On the right a woman in a light yellow dress is engaged in an interaction with two figures in darker colors. The difference in dress, along with the distinctively dark hair of the two figures to the right, and the baskets on their backs, suggest that these are Native American women engaged in selling baskets. Every year in the late summer or fall the Penobscot nation would make a camp in Wadsworth Cove on the north side of Castine. (1) While there they would gather sweet grasses to make into baskets during the coming year, and sell the ones they had made during the past year. These three women appear to be engaged in just such a transaction.

Several of Lane’s works of Castine show the town from the harbor, such as Castine, from Hospital Island, 1855 (inv. 448) and Castine Harbor and Town, 1851 (inv. 277), while these three related pictures (the drawing Castine from Fort George, 1850 (inv. 208), this painting, and Castine from Fort George, 1856 (inv. 404)) all use the same elevated viewpoint from the Fort on the north side of the town. This viewpoint is similar to the conventions of the period around city views, as seen in Lane’s much earlier works such as View of City of Washington, 1838 (inv. 450) and the 1850 work View of Baltimore, from Federal Hill, 1850 (inv. 493).

The drawing is dated 1850 and Joseph Stevens Jr.’s inscription on the drawing reads, “A Painting was made from this sketch and presented to my father.” In a letter of January of 1851 (reproduced below), Joseph Stevens Sr. wrote to Lane, “I hope you will not attribute the delay in acknowledging the receipt of your splendid, and most unexpected Gift to a want of due appreciation of it. . . . But I can no longer defer the expressions of our warmest acknowledgements for a present in itself so valuable, and endeared to us by many associations, as a representation of scenery often admired, and which I have many times wished could be transferred to canvas. . .” Perhaps this painting is similar to the work for which Joseph Stevens expressed such enthusiasm.

– Melissa Geisler Trafton

References:

(1) The 1852 diary of John Stevens (below) includes an entry for Sept. 22 that mentions seeing the camps of the "Indians" in the "Back Cove."

Related Work in the Catalog

Supplementary Images

Lane signature and date

Photo: © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Lane signature and date

Photo: © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston