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Catalog entry

inv. 97
View of Gloucester Harbor
Gloucester Harbor; View of Cape Anne
1848
Oil on canvas mounted on panel
27 x 41 in. (68.6 x 104.1 cm)
Frame: 41 5/8 x 55 3/8 in.
Signed and dated lower right: F.H. Lane / Jan: 1848

Commentary

This painting is taken from the 1847 drawing of the view of Fort Point and Ten Pound Island, Lane then painted three versions, likely all in the 1847-48 period. In this View of Gloucester Harbor, 1848, the sun is about to set casting a reddish light across Harbor Cove and Gloucester’s Outer Harbor. A light breeze barely causes ripples on the water while the sails of a lumber brig and a schooner hang slack. 

All is serenely quiet on the water and on Fort Point, and the foreground activity has become the center of attention. At left, a small sloop – probably a party boat – is shoving off from the end of Duncan’s Point Rocks, perhaps having picked up another passenger to enjoy an evening sail around the harbor. These were the early days of tourism and vacationing on Cape Ann, and Lane would be depicting more of it in the next decade. 

Below, at far left, is a dory used for shore fishing, though what type of fishing is uncertain. The barrel on board could have been used for lobster bait, or the lobsters, reflecting a growing market for the crustaceans. Strewn around the dory are a discarded codfish, a skate, and an old vessel’s rudder. More detritus of this sort would appear in later harbor views. 

At center in the foreground is a double-ended New England boat with the type’s characteristic rig: two unstayed masts with two gaff-headed sails, and no bowsprit or jib. Her hull is of the more common lapstrake construction, coated with oil and pitch instead of painted. She is decked and probably fitted with a cuddy in the bow to provide shelter for the crew, but has no stove or fireplace. This workboat type had its origin in the colonial shallops, evolving slowly to this design by the late 18th century. Its smooth-planked square-stern form (seen at its mooring in Harbor Cove) was probably an early 19th century offshoot. 

Alongside the New England boat, a table has been set up for dressing the catch. The last cod is being gutted, its head having already joined the others in a pile beside the table. Two of the boat’s crew are carrying off dressed cod in a hand barrow to sell to a nearly fish dealer, or to a restaurant catering to summer visitors. Fish caught and prepared like this were intended for the local market and would fetch a higher price than if salted and dried. 

Scattered on the ground around the New England boat is an assortment of detritus: two large fronds of kelp, a matted clump of seaweed, some clam shells, and the bottom of a broken earthenware jug. Just beyond is the New England boat’s anchor—one of the earliest depictions of a “fisherman’s anchor” whose wooden stock was wedged in a diamond-shaped eye in the anchor’s shank, just below the hawser ring. Fitting the anchor stock this way made it easy to remove for stowing. 

At far right in the harbor is a small double-ended boat being paddled (or poled, the water being so shallow at low tide) by a single occupant. Though it somewhat resembles a Maine peapod, it is too early to have been a variant of that type. It may simply have been a scaled-down version of a New England boat, an anomaly amidst our standard classifications of this period’s workboats. 

At far right in the foreground are two men in conversation, the one in brown attire leaning on his clamming fork, a basket of fresh-dug clams and his dog beside him. Is the artist (Lane) posing himself as a clamdigger in his painting? His facial features seem to hint at this possibility though there are no signs of crutches or other evidence of his infirmity. Having just moved back to Gloucester, he would have only begun to find his way back into the social fabric of Cape Ann. Was placing himself in his paintings a way of reasserting his identity as a Gloucester son?

–Erik Ronnberg

Related Work in the Catalog

Supplementary Images

Proposed viewpoint of Lane when creating the picture. Viewpoint plottings by Erik Ronnberg using U.S... [more]. Coast Survey sketch chart of Gloucester Harbor 1855.

Provenance (Information known to date; research ongoing.)

William Saville, Waban, Mass.
Vose Galleries, Boston, Mass.
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, 1962

Exhibition History

Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island, Painters of Precise Vision, February 3–28, 1954., no. 11, View of Cape Anne, probable.
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Artmobile Exhibition, Richmond, Virginia, Landscape Painting, 1650–1960, March–May 1963.
Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, The Seashore: Paintings of the 19th and 20th Centuries, October 21–December 5, 1965., no. 32.
DeCordova Museum, Lincoln, Massachusetts, Fitz Hugh Lane: The First Major Exhibition, March 20–April 17, 1966.
Traveled to: Colby College Art Museum, Waterville, Maine, 30–6, 1966.
John Wilmerding, William A. Farnsworth Library and Art Museum, Rockland, Maine, Fitz Hugh Lane 1804-1805, July 12–September 15, 1974., no. 16, ill.
Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida, 19th Century Topographic Painters, November 21, 1974–January 5, 1975.
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Virginia, American Marine Painting, September 27–October 31, 1976.
Traveled to: The Mariners' Museum and Park, Newport News, Va., 8–12, 1976.
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Artmobile Exhibition, Richmond, Virginia, American Marine Painting, spring–fall 1977.
Coe Kerr Gallery, New York, New York, American Luminism, October 25–November 25, 1978.
National Gallery of Art, Washington, District of Columbia, Paintings by Fitz Hugh Lane, May 15–September 5, 1988., no. 6, ill., p. 34.
Traveled to: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Mass., 5–31, 1988.

Published References

Wilmerding, John. Fitz Hugh Lane, 1804–1865: American Marine Painter. Salem, MA: The Essex Institute, 1964., p. 55.
The American Neptune, Pictorial Supplement VII: A Selection of Marine Paintings by Fitz Hugh Lane, 1804–1865. Salem, MA: The American Neptune, 1965., pl. VIII, no. 14, Gloucester Harbor. ⇒ includes text
Wilmerding, John. Fitz Hugh Lane: The First Major Exhibition. Lincoln, MA: De Cordova Museum; in association with Colby College Art Museum, 1966., no. 7, ill. ⇒ includes text
Gemming, Elizabeth. Huckleberry Hill: Child Life in Old New England. New York: Crowell, 1968.
Wilmerding, John. A History of American Marine Painting. Salem, MA: Peabody Museum; in association with Little, Brown and Co., 1968., no. 109, pp. 165, 175, 240.
Wilmerding, John. Fitz Hugh Lane. New York: Praeger, 1971., pl. 27, pp. 42, 182.
Boyle, Richard. American Impressionism. Boston, MA: New York Graphic Society, 1974., p. 45.
Fitz Hugh Lane 1804-1865. Rockland, ME: William A. Farnsworth Library and Art Museum, 1974., no. 16, ill.
Brandt, Frederick R., and John Wilmerding. American Marine Painting. Richmond, VA: Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 1976., no. 20, pp. 14, 54, 55.
Mandel, Patricia. Selection VII: American Painting from the Museum's Collection, c. 1800–1930. Providence, RI: Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, 1977., pp. 149–50.
Hoffman, Katherine. "The Art of Fitz Hugh Lane." Essex Institute Historical Collections 119 (1983)., p. 31, Gloucester Harbor.
A New World: Masterpieces of American Painting, 1760–1910. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1983., no. 33, p. 253.
Driscoll, John Paul, and John K. Howat. John Frederick Kensett: An American Master. Worcester, MA: Worcester Art Museum, 1985., ill., fig. 64, p. 113.
Wilmerding, John. American Marine Painting. 2nd ed. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1987., no. 101, ill., p. 112, text, pp. 116–17, 176.
Wilmerding, John. Paintings by Fitz Hugh Lane. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art; in association with Harry N. Abrams, 1988., no. 6, ill. in color, p. 34, fig. 139, ill. in b/w, p. 139, Gloucester Harbor.
Rasmussen, William M.S. "American Art to 1900." The Magazine Antiques 138 (August 1990)., pl. XVIII, p. 287.
Wilmerding, John. Fitz Henry Lane. Gloucester, MA: Cape Ann Historical Association, 2005. Reprint of Fitz Hugh Lane, by John Wilmerding. New York: Praeger, 1971. Includes new information regarding the artist's name., ill. 27, Gloucester Harbor.
Craig, James. Fitz H. Lane: An Artist's Voyage through Nineteenth-Century America. Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2006., fig. 47, n.p., text, pp. 84, 89, 156.
Didactic panel for "Building Thoreau's Boat". Concord, MA: Concord Museum, 2007. On display from August 31, 2007–January 6, 2008.
Newton, Travers, and Marcia Steele. "The Series Paintings of Fitz Henry Lane: From Field Sketch to Studio Painting." In Emil Bosshard, Paintings Conservator (1945–2006): Essays by Friends and Colleagues, edited by Maria de Peverelli, Mario Grassi, and Hans-Christoph von Imhoff. Florence: Centro Di, 2009, pp. 194–215., fig. 8, p. 205. ⇒ includes text
Yount, Sylvia, and Elizabeth O'Leary. American Art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Richmond, VA: Virginia Museum of Fine Arts; in association with the University of Virginia Press, 2010., no. 41, ill., p. 120, text, pp. 119, 121.
Citation: "View of Gloucester Harbor, 1848 (inv. 97)." Fitz Henry Lane Online. Cape Ann Museum. http://fitzhenrylaneonline.org/catalog/entry.php?id=97 (accessed March 29, 2024).
Record last updated March 1, 2018. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.
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