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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Keywords
OP.1404
Inner Harbor, Gloucester
Alternate title: Inner Bay, Gloucester
ca. 1900
Oil on canvas
25 x 25 in. (63.5 x 63.5 cm)
Signed lower right: J. H. Twachtman
Private collection
Image: Douglas J. Eng
Exhibitions
1901 Art Institute of Chicago probably
Art Institute of Chicago, Exhibition of the Works of John H. Twachtman, January 8–27, 1901, no. 45, as Inner Bay, Gloucester.
1903–I American Art Galleries
American Art Galleries, New York, Sale of the Work of the Late John H. Twachtman, exhibition and auction, March 19–24, 1903, no. 13, as Inner Harbor, Gloucester.
1973 Cape Ann Historical Association
Cape Ann Historical Association, Gloucester, Massachusetts, Portrait of a Place: Some American Landscape Painters in Gloucester, Summer 1973, no. 12, p. 59 ill. in b/w, as Inner Harbor, Gloucester.
2005–06 Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens
Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, Jacksonville, Florida, The Thomas H. and Diane D. Jacobsen Collection of American Art, November 16, 2005–December 31, 2006.
2022 Diane deMell Jacobsen Ph. D. Foundation
Dixon Gallery and Gardens and The Mint Museum, Mint Museum Uptown at Levine Center for the Arts, Charlotte, North Carolina, American Made: Paintings and Sculpture from the Demell Jacobsen Collection, September 10–December 24, 2022. (Heuer 2022), no. 76, as Inner Harbor, Gloucester. Traveled to: Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Memphis, Tennessee, January 29–April 16, 2023; Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, Jacksonville, Florida, June 9–September 26, 2023; San Antonio Museum of Art, October 14, 2023–January 7, 2024; Huntsville Museum of Art, Alabama, March 24–June 16, 2024.
Literature
New-York Tribune 1903–II
"Twachtman Pictures, $16,610: Former Pupils Applaud Sales of Favorite Canvases." New-York Tribune, March 25, 1903, p. 9, as Inner Harbor, Gloucester.
Sun 1903–II
"Twachtman Pictures, $16,610." Sun (New York), March 25, 1903, p. 5, as Inner Harbor, Gloucester.
New York Times 1903–III
"Twachtman Picture Sale." New York Times, March 25, 1903, p. 5, as Inner Harbor, Gloucester.
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. 454 (catalogue G, no. 235), as Inner Harbor, Gloucester. (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. 490; vol. 2, p. 1010 ill. in b/w (fig. 510), as Inner Harbor, Gloucester.
Heuer 2022
Heuer, Elizabeth. American Made: Paintings and Sculpture from the Demell Jacobsen Collection. Jonathan Stuhlman, ed. London: D Giles, 2022. Exhibition catalogue (2022 Diane deMell Jacobsen Ph. D. Foundation), pp. 192–93 ill. in color, as Inner Harbor, Gloucester.
Jacobsen 2022
Jacobsen, Diane DeMell. "American Made: the DeMell Jacobsen Collection." American Art Review 34 (Fall 2022), p. 97 ill. in color, as Inner Harbor, Gloucester.
Commentary

In Inner Harbor, Gloucester, Twachtman's vantage point was to the east of that in Gloucester Harbor (OP.1403), encompassing a view from a rocky precipice on East Gloucester's Banner Hill looking northwest across the Inner Harbor to the Head of the Harbor, where Gloucester and East Gloucester come together around a narrow cove. On the shore at the left, is the recognizable low-pitched gable roof of the J. F. Wonson fish building on Wonson's Wharf, while white shapes that extend to the right are additional wharves along the shore. 

This painting was not featured among the twenty-four charcoal sketches in which Twachtman recorded paintings he created in Gloucester in the summer of 1900. However, it was probably rendered that summer because is likely to be the work shown as Inner Bay, Gloucester in Twachtman's 1901 solo exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago. One of the show's reviewers may have been referring to it in the statement: "I like best some cheerful views around East Gloucester. There seems to be some sort of a bay there round which the shore curves and this circling movement is the main thing in several pictures."[1]   

The painting was included with its current title in the artist's 1903 estate sale, from which it sold to the London and New York art dealer Arthur Tooth & Sons for $410. This made it one of the most expensive works in the sale.

[1] Chicago Post 1901, p. 8.