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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
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inv. 77
New England Inlet with Self-Portrait
New England Inlet (Annisquam) with Self Portrait
1848 Oil on canvas 17 3/4 x 25 7/8 in. (45.1 x 65.7 cm) Signed and dated lower left: F H Lane 1848
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Related Work in the Catalog
Supplementary Images
Map showing Lane's viewpoint
Provenance (Information known to date; research ongoing.)
Private collection
Kenneth A. Householder
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Conn., 1992
Exhibition History
National Gallery of Art, Washington, District of Columbia, Paintings by Fitz Hugh Lane, May 15–September 5, 1988., no. 1, ill., p. 8.
Traveled to: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Mass., 5–31, 1988.
Traveled to: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Mass., 5–31, 1988.
Published References
Graham, F. Lanier. Three Centuries of American Painting from the Collection of the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum and the California Palace of the Legion of Honor. San Francisco, CA: M.H. de Young Memorial Museum and the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, 1971., no. 141, ill., p. 82.
San Francisco Bay Area Biap Survey
Art Inventories Catalog. Smithsonian American Art Museums, 1975.
Wilmerding, John. Paintings by Fitz Hugh Lane. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art; in association with Harry N. Abrams, 1988., ill. in color, p. 8.
Keck, Michaela. Walking in the Wilderness: The Peripatetic Tradition in Nineteenth-Century American Literature and Painting. Heidelberg, Germany: Universitatsverlag Winter, 2006., fig. 33, p. 293.
Wilmerding, John. Fitz Henry Lane & Mary Blood Mellen: Old Mysteries and New Discoveries. New York: Spanierman Gallery, 2007., fig. 2, p. 15, New England Inlet (Annisquam) with Self Portrait. ⇒ includes 
text
text
Rodgers, Josephine. "Fitz H. Lane's Enduring Legacy along the
New England Coastline." Yale University Art Gallery Bulletin (Yale University Art Gallery) (2022-2023)., p. 10. ⇒ includes text
text
Commentary
This painting is one of several works Lane made of the area known as "Done Fudging." Fudging referred to the poling of a vessel in the tidal river (where the thick mud is reminiscent of chocolate fudge), and Done Fudging was the point at which one was "done fudging." This version of the scene is unusual for the figure in the lower left, believed to be a rare self-portrait of Lane, and for the depiction of the train in the background. The Eastern Railroad branch line had just been extended to Gloucester in 1848, making the transport of goods and people to and from Boston rapid and inexpensive. The drawing Westward View from Cove near Done Fudging, 1861 (inv. 117) is very similar in composition, which suggests that it was a study after which Lane made the painting, although the drawing has traditionally been given a later date.