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Gallery Text

What do you see? What might you hear in such a place? Situated where land, sea, and sky meet, we gaze out across the Atlantic Ocean at midmorning. A much-reduced palette and nearly imperceptible brushwork lend this painting of coastal fog a suffused luminosity that speaks to broader cultural tensions. Landscape and maritime painting flourished across the Americas in the 19th century. As countries won autonomy from European powers, artists fortified burgeoning national identities with lush, atmospheric scenes meticulously composed. The advent of geology and photography provided many countries, including the United States, with domestic art movements. “Littoral,” or shore, scenes grew in prevalence as political tensions around abolition, expansionism, and industrialization rose.For Cropsey, the rocky shores of Rhode Island symbolized the contradictions at the heart of cultural discourse. What were spaces of beauty, leisure, and spiritual renewal for some were unceded homelands and spaces of commerce, death, and hard labor for others.

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
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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