Northwesterly View of Mount Desert Rocks, 1855

Provenance
Alexander Gallery, New York, New York
Samuel Holdsworth (1952–2024), Cape Ann, Massachusetts, acquired from above
Richard York Gallery, New York, New York, acquired from above
Private collection, Maine, 2001, acquired from above
Sale, Sotheby’s, New York, New York, January 19, 2024, lot 12, from above

Literature
John Wilmerding, The Artist’s Mount Desert: American Painters on the Maine Coast (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1994), 54.
John Wilmerding, Fitz Henry Lane & Mary Blood Mellen: Old Mysteries and New Discoveries (New York:
Spanierman Gallery, 2007), 16.
Pamela J. Belanger, Inventing Acadia: Artists and Tourists at Mount Desert (New Hampshire: University Press
of New England, 1999), 94.

Related Work(s) 
Gloucester Harbor from Rocky Neck, 1844, oil on canvas, 34 x 45 ¾ inches, signed and dated lower right: F
H Lane / 1844; Cape Ann Museum, Gloucester, Massachusetts
Boston Harbor, 1854, oil on canvas, 23¼ x 39¼ inches, signed and dated lower right: F H Lane / 1854;
The White House, Washington, DC

Note: Samuel Holdsworth, former director of Fitz Henry Lane Online, writes that this painting, executed by Fitz Henry Lane in August 1855 in his Gloucester studio, is based on a detailed drawing he made in the summer of 1852 while aboard the sloop Superior, near Mount Desert Rock in Maine. The artwork transforms a simple topographical sketch into a dynamic maritime scene, vividly depicting a hermaphrodite brig at full sail amidst rolling seas driven by a strong southwesterly wind. Lane’s composition features a red-shirted figure on the bow and a rowboat in the foreground, likely included to guide the viewer’s eye into the painting. Notably, Lane demonstrates his extraordinary visual memory by creating a lifelike and complex seascape without reference materials, using reddish ground to harmonize the waves, sky, and island rocks. This work exemplifies Lane’s ability to combine precise observation with artistic imagination, capturing the dramatic interplay of waves, weather, and nautical
elements.