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John Henry Twachtman Catalogue Raisonné
An online catalogue by Lisa N. Peters, Ph.D., in collaboration with the Greenwich Historical Society

Catalogue Entry

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Keywords
P.802
Footbridge at Bridgeport
Alternate titles: Bridge at Bridgeport; Bridgeport; The Foot Bridge, Bridgeport; The Old Toll-house at Bridgeport; The Old Toll-House, Bridgeport
ca. 1888
Pastel on brown paper
11 3/4 x 19 1/2 in. (29.8 x 49.5 cm)
Signed lower right: J. H. Twachtman–
Washington County Museum of Fine Arts, Hagerstown, Maryland, Gift of Anna Brugh Singer and William Henry Singer Jr, 1931 (A0002,31.0200)
Provenance
Martha Twachtman, the artist's wife, Greenwich, Connecticut, by 1913;
(Milch);
William Henry Singer and Anna Spencer Brugh Singer;
to present collection, 1931.
Exhibitions
1893 American Art Galleries
American Art Galleries, New York, Paintings, Pastels, and Etchings by J. Alden Weir, J. H. Twachtman, Claude Monet, and Paul Albert Besnard, by May 4–mid-November 1893, no. 33, as The Old Toll-house at Bridgeport, pastel.
1896 Western Pennsylvania Exposition Society
Western Pennsylvania Exposition Society, Winter Garden at Exposition Hall, Pittsburgh, Art Gallery Exposition, Fall 1896, no. 232, as The Old Toll-House, Bridgeport.
1904 St. Louis Universal Exposition probably
Department of Fine Arts, St. Louis, Universal Exposition, April 30–December 1, 1904, no. 1294, as Bridgeport, pastel.
1911 Folsom Galleries probably
Folsom Galleries, New York, Second Annual Exhibition of the Pastellists, December 9–13, 1911, no. 64, as Bridge at Bridgeport.
1913 New York School of Applied Design for Women
New York School of Applied Design for Women, Fifty Paintings by the Late John H. Twachtman, January 15–February 15, 1913, no. 50, as The Foot Bridge, Bridgeport, lent by Mrs. J. H. Twachtman.
1913–I Albright Art Gallery
Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, Paintings and Pastels by the Late John H. Twachtman, March 11–April 2, 1913, no. 39, as The Foot Bridge, Bridgeport, lent by Mrs. J. H. Twachtman.
1966 Cincinnati Art Museum
Cincinnati Art Museum, John Henry Twachtman: A Retrospective Exhibition, October 7–November 20, 1966. (Exhibition catalogue: Baskett 1966); (Exhibition catalogue: Boyle 1966–I), no. 102, as Footbridge at Bridgeport, lent by the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts, Hagerstown, Maryland.
1980 Hurlbutt Gallery
William Benton Museum, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut and American Impressionism, March 20–May 31, 1980, no. 60, pp. 60, 76 ill. in b/w, as Footbridge at Bridgeport.
Literature
Shoolman and Slatkin 1942
Shoolman, Regina, and Charles E. Slatkin. The Enjoyment of American Art. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1942, p. 684 ill. in b/w, as Footbridge at Bridgeport.
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. 585 (catalogue A, no. 912), as Footbridge at Bridgeport. (Hale concordance).
Bulletin of the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts 1960
"Your Museum Collection." Bulletin of the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts (April 1960), n.p. ill. in b/w, as Footbridge at Bridgeport.
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. 249; vol. 2, p. 779 ill. in b/w (fig. 252), as Footbridge at Bridgeport.
Peters 1999–I
Peters, Lisa N. John Henry Twachtman: An American Impressionist. Atlanta: High Museum of Art, 1999. Exhibition catalogue (1999 High Museum of Art), p. 78 ill. in color, as Footbridge at Bridgeport.
Schretlen 2006
Schretlen, Helen. Loving Art: The William and Anna Singer Collection. Laren, Holland: Waanders, 2006, p. 162 ill. in color, as Footbridge at Bridgeport.
Commentary

The main motif in this pastel is a wooden footbridge in Bridgeport, Connecticut, which crossed the city’s Inner Harbor on the Pequannock River along Stratford Avenue, connecting the city’s east side with its downtown. In the middle distance, on the right, is the gable of a former toll house, erected when the bridge was privately built in 1850. The building remained in place even after the city took over the bridge and made it free in 1869.[1] By 1888 the structure was being used for a number of retail outlets, including “Polly” Burton’s then-famous live bird store.[2] At the time Twachtman rendered this scene, a new iron bridge was under construction that would replace the old footbridge, but no sign of this construction is present in his images. Instead, the drooping bridge, with its intermittent lamp posts, held Twachtman’s attention.[3]

He created a few variations on this subject in different media. Among these are the etchings, The Old Toll House at Bridgeport (Small Plate) (E.802) and The Old Toll House at Bridgeport (Large Plate) (E.803). The small-plate version was reproduced in the catalogue for the sale of works by Twachtman and Julian Alden Weir that took place on February 7, 1889 at the Fifth Avenue Art Galleries. It was presumably meant to illustrate the oil painting in the exhibition, The Old Toll-House at Bridgeport, which is unlocated today. However, it is clear that the painting included barges that are not present in any of the other images of this subject; as a New York Times critic commented at the time of the show: “The touch of an etcher appears in 'The Old Toll House at Bridgeport,' with its poles and piles driven into the gray water, its barges and boat bridge floating between.”[4] Another image of this subject can be seen in the watercolor Footbridge at Bridgeport (WC.800), which Twachtman exhibited as Bridgeport in the American Water Color Society's twenty-third annual exhibition in 1890.

This image is closest to that in the small-plate etching, but here Twachtman more fully compressed the scene's depth, so that the shape of the bridge appears intermingled with architectural structures on the opposite shore, while a near lamp post is aligned with the building that housed the bird store.

Twachtman included Footbridge at Bridgeport with the title of The Old Tollhouse at Bridgeport in 1893 at the American Art Galleries. Three years later, he sent it to the Western Pennsylvania Exposition Society in Pittsburgh. It still belonged to Martha Twachtman in 1913, when she lent it to the New York School of Applied Design for Women and the Buffalo Fine Arts Academy. The work was subsequently sold by Milch Galleries, probably to William Henry Singer (1868–1943) and his wife Anna Spencer Brugh Singer (1878–1962). In her 2006 book on the Singers' collection, Helen Schretlen notes that it was in the first shipment of works given in 1931 by the Singers from their collection to the new museum in Hagerstown, Maryland.

[1] See George G. Waldo Jr., ed., History of Bridgeport (New York: S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1917, p. 283.

[2] Bridges file, Bridgeport Public Library, Historical Collections Department.

[3] See Peters 1995, pp. 248–49.

[4]  New York Times 1889–I.