Catalogue Entry

This richly luminous work was painted in 1862 as a “recollection” of an evening sail of seven years earlier with Lane’s friend Joseph Stevens.  They had sailed from Rockland, Maine to Camden, only a short distance north. Lane had made a precise topographical sketch of the Camden Hills from the boat, dated by Stevens at Sept. 1855 (below).  As is often the case, neither the vessels nor the foreground rocks are in the original drawing but were added from memory, or imagined, when it was painted in 1862. The painting is signed FH Lane 1862 on the front and inscribed on the back with the title and “F H Lane to J. L. Stevens Jr. Gloucester, 1862. A Souvenir of our excursion to Penobscot Bay, Septr. 1855”

Lane made a number of paintings from near this vantage point outside the south entrance to Camden Harbor, all of them at sunset using the dramatic Camden Hills as a backdrop (see below). In this work Lane has illuminated the bay with a spectacular rosy twilight with the sails of the large hermaphrodite brig highlighted by the last rays of direct sunlight. It is tempting to think that the foreground small boat with the three figures in it represents Lane, Stevens and another of their party. While the actual vessel Stevens and Lane cruised in was a good deal larger than this boat, it’s an easy association to make as Lane is clearly commemorating a peaceful and intimate moment with his friend.  Painted in 1862, Lane’s health was starting to falter but he was at the height of his powers as a painter. In this smallish work, 13” by 22”, Lane has condensed a large and dramatic landscape into a serene and poetic memory for his friend.

– Sam Holdsworth

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