VIEW OF NEW BEDFORD. FROM THE FORT NEAR FAIRHAVEN

Book Description

Boston: Published by A. Conant, Lane & Scott's Lith. Tremont Temple, 1845.. Lithograph printed in color and finished by hand. Very good. A stunning view of the harbor of New Bedford, Massachusetts by Fitz Henry [Hugh] Lane, one of America's most celebrated marine painters. Fitz Henry [Hugh] Lane is considered one of America's greatest landscape artists. His elegant panoramas of costal towns are nothing short of magnificent, and his accomplished lithographs set a precedent for large town views that shaped the history of American printmaking. His superb views chart the early landscape of New England's costal towns with a clarity and beauty that is seldom seen. As Carter Brown asserts, "No other American painter of the nineteenth century matched him in capturing the character of maritime New England, in portraying the reflective sheen of calm water or the agitated surface of wind-blown waves, the clarity of light-filled still air or the moist atmosphere of cloudy humid days." The son of a Gloucester sail maker, Lane was a self-taught artist. As a young man he trained as a lithographer in Boston with the firm of William S. Pendleton, until he opened his own lithographic company with John W.A. Scott. Lane's early printmaking included the creation of sheet music covers and portraits, but his true abilities lay in the depiction of landscape. By the mid-1840s Lane was creating landscape views which were unparalleled in quality at that time in America. Amongst these lithographs was a view of New Bedford after a sketch by A. Conant. As with many of Lane's signature views, this magnificent panorama is taken from a raised vantage point with a sea view in the foreground leading to an expansive townscape. The sky encompasses a large proportion of the composition creating an effective sense of depth within the image. This sweeping view is a true collector's piece from one of America's most celebrated marine painters. WILMERDING, PAINTINGS BY FITZ HUGH LANE 6. WILMERDING, FITZ HUGH LANE 38-29. THE WHALING MUSEUM, AMERICAN MARITIME PRINTS 79.

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