Catalog entry

Commentary

Lane’s lithographs, depicting the Boston skyline as background, date back to the mid-1830s (See View in Boston Harbour, c.1836 (inv. 479), Capt. E. G. Austin's Quick Step, "A Yankee Ship and a Yankee Crew", 1837 (inv. 480), and View in Boston Harbour, c.1837 (inv. 605)). Harbor of Boston, with the City in the Distance, painted a decade later, is one of his early views on canvas of that port wherein the skyline plays an integral role, combining atmosphere with the setting sun instead of merely providing static background for a vessel portrait. In this painting, that role is subtle, as the skyline is softened while it blends with mist and clouds at sunset. Contrasts in chroma and value, from foreground to background, coupled with less crowded vessel activity,  lend both depth and serenity that make this painting stand apart from Lane’s later Boston Harbor views.

As in many later paintings, Lane depicted Boston as viewed from Governor’s Island, looking west, eight degrees north, to the State House, which is nearly at dead center in the skyline. While the mist-shrouded skyline adds to the serenity of the view, many prominent buildings that might indicate its extent to north and south are too shrouded to identify. This situation is not helped by infrared scans, which indicate that the skyline was not drawn in pencil first, but painted in free-hand, with only a pencil line to indicate sea level at the waterfront.

As with most of Lane’s later harbor scenes, none of the vessels can be identified by name or owner. This view is also unusual for its foreground, dominated by smaller vessel types, while the large merchant ships are relegated to the background. This raises questions regarding Lane’s prospective clientele for this work, and/or his personal reasons for painting it.

The gundalow is of particular interest, being the humblest example of shipbuilding in this view, yet being nearest in the foreground and being a focal point that catches the eye and directs a counterclockwise line of interest around the painting. Human activity is particularly well drawn and purposeful. Infrared scans of the gundalow reveal careful redrawing of the helmsman and one of the oarsmen, suggesting a response to criticism.

Types of depicted vessels are as follows:   

1. Merchant ships. The false, painted gunports were then fashionable for ships in the trans-Atlantic packet trades.
2. Merchant brig at anchor, her sails “hanging in the gear” to dry. She is probably off-loading some cargo to the packet sloop alongside for distribution to small coastal communities.
3. A topsail schooner, deep-loaded, leaving port for a more distant coastal destination. The square topsails gave the vessel easier motion when sailing offshore in heavy seas.
4. Packet sloop. The stern gallery with “lights” (windows) was common to packets carrying passengers as well as freight.
5. Gundalow, in this case a regional variant called a Piscataqua River gundalow, after its place of origin, one of New Hampshire’s most important rivers. A vessel type usually confined to river and short-distance coastal trade.
6. New England boat, in this case a two-masted open boat used mainly for coastal fishing. The type had many regional variants.
7. Yawl boat, a ship’s boat carried on the sterns of merchant schooners, also by fishing schooners in the hand-line fisheries.
8. Side-wheel steamship used in the coastal passenger trade. This example is very similar in profile to the steamer “Yacht” which was the first steam vessel to carry passengers and freight between Boston and Gloucester. See View of Gloucester, (From Rocky Neck), 1846 (inv. 92).
9. A small schooner yacht, evidenced by the absence of a blue over white flag at her mast head, which would indicate a pilot schooner. Small fast schooners of this size were built as yachts or pilot schooners, and subsequently sold and converted to their alternative uses.

– Erik Ronnberg

Supplementary Images