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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.973
Boat at Anchor
Alternate titles: Glimmering Shadows; The Grey Day
Mid-1890s
Oil on canvas
30 1/2 x 25 3/16 in. (77.5 x 64 cm)
Stamped lower left: Twachtman Sale [1903 estate sale]
Huntington Museum of Art, West Virginia, Gift of Herbert Fitzpatrick (1952.458)
Provenance
(American Art Galleries, New York, Twachtman estate sale, March 24, 1903, lot 60, as The Grey Day);
to Edward A. Rorke, Brooklyn;
(Milch);
(Vose);
Harry W. Jones, Kansas City;
Allan Smith, Los Angeles;
(A. Kimbel & Son, Inc., New York);
to (Parke-Bernet, New York, March 14–15, 1941, Kimbel sale, lot 22, as Glimmering Shadows);
private collection;
(David Findlay, New York);
Herbert Fitzpatrick;
gift to present collection, 1952.
Exhibitions
1940 Findlay Galleries
Findlay Galleries, New York, Exhibition of Paintings by George Inness and Other Important Americans, October 1940, no. 39, as Glimmering Shadows.
Literature
Sun 1903–II
"Twachtman Pictures, $16,610." Sun (New York), March 25, 1903, p. 5, as The Grey Day.
Parke-Bernet 1941
Fine English and French Furniture . . . and Decorative Objects: The Stock of the Old-Established Firm of Decorators, A. Kimbel & Son, Inc, New York. Auction catalogue, March 14–15, 1941. New York: Parke-Bernet, 1941, lot 22 ill. in b/w, as Glimmering Shadows.
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. 1, p. 360 ill. in b/w (fig. 117); vol. 2, pp. 452 (catalogue G, no. 222, as Grey Day); 452 (catalogue G, no. 223, as Grey Day); 490 (catalogue G, no. 53), as Boat at Anchor. (Hale concordance).
Commentary

Boat at Anchor depicts the pond that Twachtman created by damming a section of Horseneck Brook on his Greenwich property, providing a place for his young children to boat and fish. The green flat-bottomed boat and the large boulder in the left distance can also be seen in A Summer Day (OP.972). Boat at Anchor conveys the quiet end of day, when shadows lengthen and the day’s activities have ceased. Twachtman balanced the boat’s convex shape against the rounded boulder, conveying a feeling of closure.

Boat at Anchor was included in Twachtman’s 1903 estate sale as The Grey Day, although its dimensions were reversed in the catalogue listing. The work was purchased along with nine others by Edward A. Rorke (1856–1905), a Brooklyn painter of genre scenes and landscapes who was a friend of Twachtman’s. In 1941 the painting was sold at Parke-Bernet as Glimmering Shadows.

Selected Literature

1941 Parke-Bernet 

Glimmering Shadows. Misty view of a body of water reflecting a silvery sky, bordered by light green shores with a single tree growing in the right distance; at the left, a sailboat moored by the bank.