Artwork Image
Photo:
Controls
Boston Harbor
Object Details
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Date
1856
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Object Type
Paintings
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Medium
Oil on canvas
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Dimensions
25 1/2 x 42 1/4 in.
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Inscriptions
Recto:
date incised l.r.: 1856
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Credit Line
Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas
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Accession Number
1977.14
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Copyright
Public domain
Object Description
In the center of Lane’s composition a steamship chugs into view, its white hull gleaming in the sun. An array of different vessels surrounds the steamer, including a massive transatlantic packet ship and its tugboat at left; a smaller coastal sloop just right of center; and a clipper, its bright sails unfurled to dry. Lane’s picture offers a visual inventory of Boston’s shipping capabilities at midcentury.
Few artists of the era were as well-versed in seafaring life as Lane. The son of a sailmaker, he spent most of his life in Gloucester, Massachusetts, where he specialized in marine painting. During the 1850s, he completed several seascapes of Boston Harbor, a major center of oceanic trade. These pictures celebrated the region amid mounting sectional tensions over slavery, with Boston’s bustling harbor symbolizing the commercial and technological might of the North.
—Text taken from the Carter Handbook (2023).
Additional details
Location: Off view
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