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
E.502
Landscape with Footbridge
Alternate titles: Near Cincinnati, Ohio; Willows and Footbridge, near Cincinnati
ca. 1879–80
Etching on paper
3 3/16 x 4 7/8 in. (8.1 x 12.4 cm)
Signed in plate, lower right: J. [in reverse] H.T.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Gift of Sylvester Rosa Koehler (K1813)
Provenance
Literature
Wickenden 1921
Wickenden, R[obert] J. The Art and Etchings of John Henry Twachtman. New York: Frederick Keppel, 1921, pp. 31–32, 48, as Near Cincinnati, Ohio.
Baskett 1966
Baskett, Mary Welsh. "Prints." In John Henry Twachtman: A Retrospective Exhibition, by Richard J. Boyle, Mary Welsh Baskett, and Philip R. Adams. Cincinnati: Cincinnati Art Museum, 1966. Exhibition catalogue (1966 Cincinnati Art Museum), pp. 25 ill. in b/w (figs. 1–2), 32, 37 ill. in b/w.
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. 127; vol. 2, p. 644 ill. in b/w (fig. 96), as Willows and Footbridge, near Cincinnati.
Baskett 1999
Baskett, Mary Welsh. John Henry Twachtman: American Impressionist Painter as Printmaker—A Catalogue Raisonné of His Prints. Bronxville, N.Y.: M. Hausberg, 1999, pp. 68–69, ill. in b/w, as Landscape with Footbridge. (Baskett concordance).
Commentary

Mary Baskett notes that an impression of this etching, along with Shanties and Factories (E.300), was in a frame that bore a label bearing the date: August 11, 1880. This indicates that the image was probably included in the Chicago Inter-State Industrial exhibition of 1880 and/or the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Exhibition of American Etchers of April–May 1881.

In a method similar to that in Autumn Landscape (E.501), Twachtman created this image by sketching on his etching plate in the outdoors. He again consolidated the trees at the work's center, but here he stood closer to the scene, encompassing the near hills with diagonal lines  and conveying the different grades of their slopes, while he suggested the presence of a more distant ridge with tighter vertical lines. In the foreground is the footbridge of the title—made evident primarily by lines indicating shadows on the sunlit walkway. Its horizontality concurs with the composition, demonstrating Twachtman's interest in revealing his artistry even in such a directly drawn image. 

This etching has been variously titled. It is Willows and Footbridge in Ryerson 1920, Near Cincinnati in Wickenden 1921, and Willows and Footbridge, Near Cincinnati in 1966 Cincinnati.

Wickenden wrote that the work "suggests an essay in the treatment of trees and grasses with possible regrounding and rebiting. While the eye has distinguished the forms of the tree trunks rising out of the sedges of a stream crossed by a log bridge near the foreground, interest in this little plate increases" (pp. 31–32).

The impression in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, illustrated here, is a lifetime print, State I, given to the museum by Sylvester Rosa Koehler (1837–1900), the first curator of prints at the museum. 

Lifetime states (from Baskett 1999)

I. Before signature.

II. With signature, lower right margin "J [in reverse] H. T."