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Gallery Text

For 19th-century American painters, the coastline was a site of endless fascination. The rocky shores and sandy beaches of the Northeast embodied the contradictions at the heart of the nation’s attitude toward nature: they were spaces of beauty and leisure but also of commerce and hard labor. Cropsey’s painting reflects this complex play of meanings and associations, eschewing the market to foreground the coastline’s aesthetic power. Painting in Newport, which started to attract summer visitors in the mid-19th century, Cropsey uses quiet, minimalist compositions and extremely tight brushwork to dramatize the vastness of the sea and the luminous glow of the sun on its surface.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
2018.296
People
Jasper Francis Cropsey, American (1823 - 1900)
Title
Morning Fog
Other Titles
Former Title: Coastal Scene in Newport, Rhode Island
Former Title: Coastal View
Former Title: Sprouting Rock, Newport
Classification
Paintings
Work Type
painting
Date
c. 1854-1855
Culture
American
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/50600

Location

Location
Level 2, Room 2100, European and American Art, 17th–19th century, Centuries of Tradition, Changing Times: Art for an Uncertain Age
View this object's location on our interactive map

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Oil on artist's board
Dimensions
31 × 48.5 cm (12 3/16 × 19 1/8 in.)
framed: 57.7 × 75.5 cm (22 11/16 × 29 3/4 in.)
Inscriptions and Marks
  • inscription: verso, upper right, red paint: 5:38
  • inscription: verso, center, blue chalk: #3 3
  • inscription: verso, upper center, black marker: [arrow pointing up]
  • label: verso, upper right, circle: [illegible text]
  • label: on backing board, printed text: QUESTROYAL FINE ART, LLC / IMPORTANT AMERICAN PAINTINGS / Jasper Francis Cropsey (1823-1900) / Coastal Scene in Newport, Rhode Island / Oil on Board / 12 5/16 x 19 5/16 inches / 903 Park Avenue, Third Floor, New York, NY 10075 / T: 212.744.3586 F: 212.585.3828 EMAIL: gallery@questroyalfineart.com
  • label: on backing board, printed text: Berry-Hill / JASPER FRANCIS CROPSEY (1823-1900) / Coastal Scene in Newport, Rhode Island, ca. / 1854-1855 / Oil on artist's board / 12 1/4 x 19 1/4 inches / D/2288 / Berry-Hill Galleries, Inc. 11 East 70th Street, New York, NY 10021 / Tel (212) 744-2300 Fax (212_ 744-2838 www.berry-hill.com

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Mrs. Richard (Helen Rutherfurd, née Ely) Meade, by 1936. City Art Museum of Saint Louis, 1936, deaccessioned and sold [through Kende Galleries at Gimbel Brothers, New York, September 21-22, 1945, lot 226]. [1] [Alexander Gallery, New York, by 1979 as "Coastal View"]. [Adams Davidson Galleries, Washington, D.C., 1980, as "Sprouting Rock, Newport"]. [Frank Green of Fran-Glow Fine Arts, London, 1980]. Private Collection, England. [Berry-Hill Galleries, Inc., New York, 2000]. [Questroyal Fine Arts, New York] sold; to Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr., 2002, gift; to Harvard Art Museums, 2018

Notes
[1] The painting was first offerd for sale through Kende Galleries at Gimbel Brothers on May 4,1945 as lot 5. The lot was unsold in that sale.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift of Theodore E. Stebbins Jr.
Accession Year
2018
Object Number
2018.296
Division
European and American Art
Contact
am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Publication History

  • Richard McLanathan, Romantic America: The Middle Decades of the 19th Century, exh. cat., The Tampa Museum (Tampa, 1979), p. 54, cat. no. 37
  • Anthony M. Speiser, ed., Jasper Francis Cropsey: Catalogue Raisonné, Works in Oil, Volume One: 1842-1863, Newington-Cropsey Foundation (Hastings-on-Hudson, 2013), pp. 181-182, no. 292, repr. p. 182

Exhibition History

  • Romantic America: The Middle Decades of the 19th Century, The Tampa Museum, 09/15/1979 - 12/03/1979
  • Harvard Collects American Art, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, 08/09/2003 - 02/22/2004
  • 32Q: 2100 19th Century, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 03/07/2018 - 01/01/2050

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of European and American Art at am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu