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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At the Entrance of a Carry, ca. 1888 (OP.809). Fig. 1. Twachtman, "At the Entrance of a Carry," engraving by Elbridge Kingsley, illustrating Hamilton Wright Mabie, "Winter in the Adirondacks," Scribner's Magazine 4 (December 1888), p. 647.
Fig. 1. Twachtman, "At the Entrance of a Carry," engraving by Elbridge Kingsley, illustrating Hamilton Wright Mabie, "Winter in the Adirondacks," Scribner's Magazine 4 (December 1888), p. 647.
Keywords
OP.809
At the Entrance of a Carry
ca. 1888
Oil on wood panel
13 13/16 x 9 3/4 in. (35.2 x 24.8 cm)
Signed lower right: JHT
Private collection
Provenance
Possibly purchased from the artist by Scribner's magazine, 1888;
(Victor D. Spark, New York);
to private collection, ca. 1955;
to present collection, ca. 1955.
Exhibitions
2012 Brandywine River Museum
Brandywine River Museum, Chadd's Ford, Pennsylvania, Scribner's Magazine: The Early Years in Illustration, March 17–May 20, 2012, as At the Entrance of a Carry.
Literature
Mabie 1888
Mabie, Hamilton Wright. "Winter in the Adirondacks." Scribner's, December 4, 1888, p. 647 ill. in b/w, in engraving, as At the Entrance of a Carry.
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. 571 (catalogue A, no. 577), as At the Entrance of a Carry. (Hale concordance).
Commentary

Depicting an Adirondack boat carry, this painting was used as an illustration in Hamilton Wright Mabie’s article, “Winter in the Adirondacks,” published in Scribner’s Magazine in December 1888 (fig. 1).  Already in August 1882 Twachtman had been to the Adirondacks to visit Weir at his home in the Keene Valley. However, this image—perhaps rendered from a photograph—seems mostly inspired by Mabie’s description of Adirondack portages through woods, “covered with snow of a dazzling purity,” carved out for the purpose of transporting boats between waterways.[1]  

As suggested by a pencil inscription on its verso, the painting is likely to have been purchased from Twachtman by Scribner’s, whose literary advisor and book editor starting in 1888 was the critic William C. Brownell (1851–1928). Brownell had known Twachtman for some time, having written about his work for his 1880 article in Scribner’s, “The Younger Painters of America.”[2]

[1] Mabie 1888, p. 646.

[2]  Brownell 1880, pp. 321–35.