
Catalogue Entry

- Locales
: - Subject matter
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A favorite Gloucester perspective for Twachtman was the view from Banner Hill in East Gloucester looking downward toward Smith's Cove or across Inner Harbor. Here he took the opposite vantage point, depicting a view from a pier in Rocky Neck looking toward Banner Hill. In the scene, the white buildings on the hillcrest are similar to those in Gloucester (OP.1408) and structures in the hills themselves are suggestive of those in Gloucester Harbor (OP.1403). Twachtman consolidated the scene's depth by depicting a broadside view of the dark hull of a schooner at the work's center, its horizontality repeated in the buildings and hills. The painting belongs to many in Twachtman's oeuvre in which he chose to look self-reflectively at sites from reverse perspectives, as if to consider himself in relation to his work.
The early history of this painting is unknown. It is likely to have been rendered in the summer of 1901 or the summer of 1902 because it is not featured among the twenty-four charcoal sketches Twachtman sent to his son, after images of Gloucester that he painted in the summer of 1900.