Object details
Accession number
P11n36
Primary Creator
Sarah Wyman Whitman
(Lowell, Massachusetts, 1842 - 1904, Boston)
Full title
Newport Canal, Shropshire
Creation Date
about 1878
Provenance
Probably purchased by Isabella Stewart Gardner from the gallery Doll & Richards, Boston for $100 on 8 March 1878. (entitled "Landscape Dawn Newport")
Marks
Inscribed (lower right, within a heart): WInscribed (on a Musuem of Fine Arts, Boston label affixed to the frame, verso): 807 CBInscribed (verso, in pencil): $100 / Mrs Gardner / Mrs Whitman
Dimensions
36 x 41 cm (14 3/16 x 16 1/8 in.)
Display Media
Pastel on paper
Web Commentary
Isabella took care to exhibit the work of women artists in her museum, including this tranquil landscape painting by her friend Sarah Wyman Whitman. A prolific artist who worked in a variety of media, Whitman is best known for her designs for stained glass and book covers. She studied painting early in her career and exhibited oils and pastels in Boston beginning in the 1870s; Isabella was an early supporter and purchased this work in 1878. Whitman later designed the distinctive crest above the museum’s entryway, featuring a phoenix rising from the ashes and the French phrase C’est Mon Plaisir (It Is My Pleasure).
Permanent Gallery Location
Macknight Room
Bibliography
"Memorial Exhibition of Paintings by Mrs. Sarah Wyman Whitman." Museum of Fine Arts Bulletin, vol. 4 (June 1906), p. 23. (entitled "Landscape (pastel)")
"Loans Recieved in 1906." Museum of Fine Arts, Thirty-First Annual Report (Boston, 1907), p. 23. (entitled "Landscape (pastel)")
Morris Carter. Isabella Stewart Gardner and Fenway Court (Boston, 1925; Reprint, Boston, 1972), p. 54. (entitled "Dawn Newport")
Philip Hendy. Catalogue of Exhibited Paintings and Drawings (Boston, 1931), p. 419. (entitled "Moonrise on a Canal")
Gilbert Wendel Longstreet and Morris Carter. General Catalogue (Boston, 1935), p. 72. (entitled "Moonrise on a Canal")
Philip Hendy. European and American Paintings in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston, 1974), p. 294, ill. (entitled "Moonrise on a Canal")
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