Catalogue Entry

This painting is another in Lane’s Camden Harbor series all taken from the same drawing of 1855, see below. In this work he has focused on the left side of the drawing including more of the town of Camden and only one of the distinctive hills. The sun is still up and just entering the atmosphere near the horizon and beginning to color the sky and water. The other three works in the series, shown below, capture either the moment just before or just after the sun sinks below the horizon. 

The works in the Camden series show how Lane would use a single drawing as a basis for subtle variants on the same scene. These paintings were done back in Lane’s studio in Gloucester and, in at least one case, years after the drawing of 1855. Camden was the starting point for multiple Maine sailing cruises Lane and his friend Joseph Stevens took in the 1850’s that resulted in so many extraordinary works. In this great series of luminous paintings one can feel how Lane was struck by the great sense of space and reflected light in the sky and water encircled by the Camden hills and islands of the lower Penobscot Bay. 

–Sam Holdsworth 

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