loading 
Fitz Henry Lane
HISTORICAL ARCHIVE • CATALOGUE RAISONNÉ • EDUCATIONAL RESOURCE
An online project under the direction of the CAPE ANN MUSEUM
An online project under the direction of the CAPE ANN MUSEUM
Catalog entry
|
inv. 191
Beached Hull
1862 Graphite on paper 1 sheet of paper 14 x 15 in. (35.6 x 38.1 cm) Inscribed lower left (in pencil on a glued down piece of paper): Fitz H. Lane
|
Related Work in the Catalog
Supplementary Images
Provenance (Information known to date; research ongoing.)
the Artist, Gloucester, Mass.
Cape Ann Museum, Gloucester, Mass. Gift of Samuel H. Mansfield
Exhibition History
No known exhibitions.Published References
Paintings and Drawings by Fitz Hugh Lane. Gloucester, MA: Cape Ann Historical Association, 1974., fig. 125.
Wilmerding, John. Paintings by Fitz Hugh Lane. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art; in association with Harry N. Abrams, 1988., ill. in b/w p. 100 fig. 34, Beached Hull.
Training the Eye and the Hand: Fitz Hugh Lane and 19th Century Drawing Books. Gloucester, MA: Cape Ann Historical Association, 1993., p. 18, fig. 13, Beached Hull.
Craig, James. Fitz H. Lane: An Artist's Voyage through Nineteenth-Century America. Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2006., fig. 99.
Commentary
This uniquely conceived drawing is the basis for Lane’s Dream Painting, 1862 (inv. 74), but also offers a rare example of his treatment of a large vessel in the drawing stage. The wreck is of a large merchant ship of the same type as shown in Wreck of the Roma, 1846 (inv. 250) – a type described as a large “ocean carrier,” later called a “down easter”.
Comparing the drawing with the finished painting, we find the ship’s hull form little-changed. The stern is more twisted in the former and there are few signs of rigging, such as shrouds, deadeyes, chainplates, and bowsprit details which are clearly depicted in the painting. The painting also shows hull planking in great detail, and clearer, more detailed deck structures. What remains constant is the hull geometry and the setting, minus the states of weather and sea.
Lane’s drawing offers valuable insight to his treatment of large vessels in the drawing state, particularly as he drew them on paper. First and foremost was correct hull form and accurate placement of the most significant details. It is obvious in this case that the geometry of the bow and its decorative carvings, together with the heavy wales (three raised planks running the length of the hull) were critical to this end. The twist in the hull at the stern emphasizes the stress imposed by the grounding, but Lane evidently decided it was unnecessary and omitted this deformity in the painting.
Infrared scanning has made it possible to see Lane’s drawings of vessels on canvas, and this offers important evidence of changes in the process of transferring and modifying this example. That process has already been studied and reported by Newton and Steele, and can be viewed on this web site.
–Erik Ronnberg
Reference:
Travers Newton and Marcia Steele, “Observation, Imagination, and Technique in Fitz Henry Lane’s Dream Painting” (Terra Foundation for American Art, 2011). This essay can be viewed on Dream Painting, 1862 (inv. 74).