John Henry Twachtman Catalogue Raisonné
An online catalogue by Lisa N. Peters, Ph.D., in collaboration with the Greenwich Historical Society
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P.708
Harbor at Night
Alternate titles: Harbor at Night, Long Island Sound, Nocturne; Late Twilight; Long Island Sound; Long Island Sound Nocturne
ca. 1885
Pastel on dark gray paper
13 3/4 x 22 in. (34.9 x 55.9 cm)
Signed (indistinctly) lower left: J.H. Twachtman; Signed lower right: J. H. Twachtman
David Owsley Museum of Art of Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana, Elisabeth Ball Collection, Gift of the George and Frances Ball Foundation (1995.036.027)
Exhibitions
1886 J. Eastman Chase's Gallery probably
J. Eastman Chase's Gallery, Boston, Paintings and Pastels by John H. Twachtman, January 19–30, 1886, no. 16, as Late Twilight.
1961 Ball State Teachers College
Ball State Teachers College, Muncie, Indiana, An Exhibition of Paintings from the Collection of Elisabeth Ball, October 1961, October 1961, no. 22, as Long Island Sound.
1984 Ball State University Art Gallery
Ball State University Art Gallery, Muncie, Indiana, The Elisabeth Ball Collection of Paintings, Drawings, and Watercolors: The George and Frances Ball Foundation, January 15–February 26, 1984, no. 31, as Harbor at Night, Long Island Sound, Nocturne.
1999 Cincinnati Art Museum
Cincinnati Art Museum, The Prints of John Henry Twachtman, June 6–September 5, 1999, as Harbor at Night.
Literature
Boston Evening Transcript 1886 probably
"Paintings and Pastels by J. H. Twachtman." Boston Evening Transcript, January 23, 1886, p. 6, as Late Twilight.
Hale 1957
Hale, John Douglass. "Life and Creative Development of John H. Twachtman." 2 vols. Ph.D. dissertation, Ohio State University, 1957. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms, 1958, vol. 2, p. 587 (catalogue A, no. 953), as Harbor at Night. (Hale concordance).
Peters 1995
Peters, Lisa N. "John Twachtman (1853–1902) and the American Scene in the Late Nineteenth Century: The Frontier within the Terrain of the Familiar." 2 vols. Ph.D. dissertation, City University of New York, 1995. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms International, 1996, vol. 1, p. 212; vol. 2, p. 740 ill. in b/w (fig. 209), as Harbor at Night.
Baskett 1999
Baskett, Mary Welsh. John Henry Twachtman: American Impressionist Painter as Printmaker—A Catalogue Raisonné of His Prints. Bronxville, N.Y.: M. Hausberg, 1999, p. 88 ill. in b/w, as Harbor at Night. (Baskett concordance).
Commentary

Although this pastel was exhibited as a Long Island scene (in 1961 and 1984), it is instead a view of Holland, created probably in the summer of 1885. A windmill in the distance confirms this, and the same scene appears in the etching Harbor at Night (E.604), a Dutch work, which Twachtman produced in its several states. While the most complete version of the etching, illustrated in Baskett 1999 (p. 89), features a large windmill in the middle distance and little evidence of the barge depicted prominently here, in earlier states, Twachtman omitted the central windmill emphasizing the barge. This suggests that the pastel was used by the artist to design the etching.

This pastel was probably the one shown as Late Twilight in Twachtman’s 1886 exhibition at J. Eastman Chase’s Gallery, Boston. A critic for the Boston Evening Transcript wrote that though the work was “done on paper so rough as to seem like [an] affectation, [it] is yet very effective. A huge hulk lying in smooth water, and behind it a great sweep of cold, black cloud with pale green sky above, a good study.”

The green tone may have subsequently faded, but the rest of the description fits this image well.