Description:
Pastel drawing of a one and one half story white house with green shutters and a high pitched roof, the scene has a yellow foreground and a tree on the left side, and a blue cloudy sky. inscribed on the lower right corner, "Arnold's Headquarters near Quebec", and "S. M. Lane 1890". The drawing is a pastel on paper in a gilded frame. Susan Minot Lane was a teacher, writer, and painter; she was the lifelong companion of Charlotte Alice Baker of Deerfield, Boston, and York, Maine and close friend of the photographer Emma Coleman. C. Alice Baker and Susan Minot Lane opened a school in Chicago in 1856. The women ran their school until 1864 when they moved to Cambridge, Mass., to be with Miss Baker’s sickly mother. Another painting by Lane of The Junkins Garrison was used as an illustration in C. Alice Baker and Emma Coleman's book New England Captives Carried to Canada (1897) and is located in the collection of the Old York Historical Society. The image depicts the house where Benedict Arnold was headquartered during his siege of the City of Quebec. When the Second Continental Congress authorized an invasion of Quebec, in part on the urging of Arnold, he was passed over for command of the expedition. Arnold then went to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and suggested to George Washington a second expedition to attack Quebec City via a wilderness route through present-day Maine. This expedition, for which Arnold received a colonel's commission in the Continental Army, left Cambridge in September 1775 with 1,100 men. After a difficult passage in which 300 men turned back and another 200 died en route, Arnold arrived before Quebec City in November. Joined by Richard Montgomery's small army, he participated in the December 31 assault on Quebec City in which Montgomery was killed and Arnold's leg was shattered. Rev. Samuel Spring, his chaplain, carried him to the makeshift hospital at the Hôtel Dieu. Arnold, who was promoted to brigadier general for his role in reaching Quebec, maintained an ineffectual siege of the city until he was replaced by Major General David Wooster in April 1776. In Concerning Frary House (c. 1940) by Emma Lewis Coleman, she writes "Small pastel by S.M.L. of Benedict Armold's Headquarters in 1776 just outside of Quebec." This pastel was hung in the Canada Room originally.
Tags:
women artists Subjects:
Women artists Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+69.1309 |
