Early Hudson River School Landscape
Dimensions: Width 48″ x Height 36″
Maker: Unknown, School of William Codman
Location: Found near Wiscasset, Maine
Date: circa 1830
Commentary: This large, ambitious pastoral scene of the beginning of the wheat harvest is characteristic of the early Hudson River School in its depiction of a benign and prosperous natural setting. As with many such works by artists attempting to make the leap from the decorative themes and subjects that earned their daily bread as sign, carriage or house painters, to more sophisticated compositions, much of the painting’s charm derives from the gap between the artist’s skill and his ambitions. The painting includes a number of symbolic elements such as the decaying tree, scythes and abundant fields frequently employed by artist of the period to denote the cycles of nature but is imbued with an overall air of peaceful optimism and soft tranquill light.
The painting is sufficiently similar to works by Charles Codman to support the conjecture that artists knew each other and raise the possibility that they may have worked together as apprentices in the decorative painting shop of John Ritto Penniman in Boston. Several area artists with similar styles such as John Samuel Blunt and Henry Ary passed through Penniman’s employ and, like Codman, seemed to have supported themselves largely through decorative work while struggling to build a clientele for their more serious paintings. Alternatively, the artist of this landscape, which has a more primitive, naive feel than the works of any of these artists, may have been among the several apprentices known to have worked with Codman upon his return to Portland, Maine where he established his own business.
Condition: Painting is in excellent condition and has been professionally lined and placed on a new stretcher. The period mahogany frame with more recent gold liner insert is appropriate for the painting but not original.
Price: sold
Additional Photos
Without Frame
Detail of Workers
Detail of River Bank
