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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
OP.1438
Boat Landing
ca. 1902
Oil on panel
13 1/2 x 9 1/2 in. (34.3 x 24.1 cm)
Stamped lower left: Twachtman Sale [1903 estate sale]
Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Hugh Halff Jr.
Provenance
(American Art Galleries, New York, Twachtman estate sale, March 24, 1903, no. 3);
to Charles M. Kelly;
private collection, by 1959;
to (Hirschl & Adler, 1959);
to (Main Street Gallery, 1961);
(Sloan & Roman, New York, by 1968);
to Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Spencer, 1968;
to (Spanierman, 1990);
to present collection, 1990.
Exhibitions
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. 3, as Boat Landing.
1987 Spanierman
Spanierman Gallery, New York, Twachtman in Gloucester: His Last Years, 1900–1902, May 12–June 13, 1987. (Exhibition catalogue: Boyle 1987); (Exhibition catalogue: Gerdts 1987); (Exhibition catalogue: Hale 1987); (Exhibition catalogue: Peters 1987), no. 15, as Boat Landing.
1990–II Spanierman
Spanierman Gallery, New York, The Spencer Collection of American Art, June 13–29, 1990, no. 27, as Boat Landing.
Literature
Sun 1903–II
"Twachtman Pictures, $16,610." Sun (New York), March 25, 1903, p. 5, as Boat Landing.
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. 431 (catalogue G, no. 54a), as Boat Landing. (Hale concordance).
Peters 1990–II
Peters, Lisa N. "Entries." In The Spencer Collection of American Art. New York: Spanierman Gallery, 1990, pp. 56–57 ill. in color, as Boat Landing.
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. 476; vol. 2, p. 994 ill. in b/w (fig. 494), as Boat Landing.
Commentary

Created on a thin cedar panel somewhat larger than the cigar box tops that Twachtman often used for plein-air sketches in Gloucester, this painting most likely depicts the pier that extended into Wonson's Cove near the Harbor View Hotel (see OP.1445), where Twachtman resided in the summer of 1902. The scene could have been rendered on the same day as The Pier (OP.1437), as it features the same motifs:

a sloop with a dark hull anchored alongside the pier with a tall mooring post at its side that seems to have a looped end. Whereas in The Pier Twachtman stood farther back, so that the wharf extends on a continuous diagonal, here he featured it only as an oblong wedge on an upward tilt in the right foreground. From this angle, the boat must have seemed to lean to the right, as Twachtman rendered it. On the far shore, he used broad brushwork to suggestively indicate architectural structures. 

The painting was included with its current title in Twachtman’s 1903 estate sale. It was purchased for $45 by an unknown individual named Charles M. Kelly.