Catalog entry

Commentary

The scene is set in Gloucester Harbor. Two men in a small boat approach Ten Pound Island, one with a boat hook in his hand as if to pick up a mooring. It is just after sunset and a deep twilight is falling. In the shadow of the island there is a small boat with sails down and two men rowing. It’s a moody, rich painting, somewhat uncharacteristic for Lane.

Though the date and Lane’s inscription make it unlikely, it could be argued that Mary Mellen had a hand in this painting. Stylistically, there is an awkwardness to the drawing of the lighthouse and rocks. The paint application is somewhat dense, and the men in the boat are much larger than they should be.

However, in his early years, Lane was not always perfect with the scale of men in small boats. And while the underdrawing is not extensive, its presence under the paint is more typical of Lane. The sky reflecting the sun’s afterglow has subtlety and is quite convincing, whereas in two copies of this work known to have been made by Mellen, the coloring is far more extreme and looks quite artificial. All of this argues for Lane as the author of Ten Pound Island at Sunset.

It is possible that this picture's uncharacteristically casual drawing and more dense paint handling may have influenced some false attributions. Several other small paintings once attributed to Lane have turned out to be by Mellen.

This is another of the small paintings that was given by Lane to J. L. Stevens, his good friend and patron. On the back of the panel is inscribed: “Composition, F.H. Lane to J.L. Stevens, Jr. 1851." A later inscription adds, “D. Jerome Elwell touched upon, March 13, 1891” (or ‘71, unclear). Jerome Elwell was another of Lane’s students along with Mary Mellen. He was much younger and was only associated with Lane for a short period at the end of Lane’s life; he continued as a painter, mostly in European styles. He must have known the Stevenses and “touched upon” this painting, probably to brighten and modernize it. All these changes were removed in a later restoration.

– Sam Holdsworth

Supplementary Images

Verso. Ten Pound Island at Sunset (verso)

Photo: © Cape Ann Museum

Overall infrared image of the painting shows light underdrawing in the island at right, the contour ... [more]of the distant land and the house. The chimney appears to have been shifted to the left in the final painting. Dark areas in the sky are abundant retouching done later by a conservator. – Marcia Steele

Photo: J. Neubecker
© Cape Ann Museum 2015