Description:
Framed oil painting, "View of Petra," by Erastus Salisbury Field (1805-1900), which descended in the Hubbard family to Elizabeth Graves Hubbard Howes (1907-1994) of the Plumtrees section of Sunderland. Howe was the daughter of George Caleb Hubbard (b.1878) and Florence Graves Hubbard, granddaughter of Parker Dole Hubbard (1825-1895) and Elizabeth Newton Hubbard (1842-1915), great-granddaughter of Ashley Hubbard (1792-1861) and Betsey Dole Hubbard (1794-1862), and great-great granddaughter of Caleb Hubbard (1754-1850) and Lucretia Ashley Hubbard (1767-1853) of the Hubbard Tavern in Plumtrees. Born in Leverett, Mass., Field worked mainly painting the middle-class citizens of rural New England. Though he studied painting with Samuel F. B. Morse (1791-1872) in New York for 3 months from Dec. 1824 to Feb. 1825, Field continued to paint in a country style. His portraits, with their flat compositions and blunt directness, were popular in rural towns and small cities along the Connecticut River Valley, from Greenfield and Northampton in the north to Hartford and New Haven in the south. His rapid style conveyed details of clothing and facial expressions with minimum brushwork; Field could complete a full portrait of an adult sitter in a day's time at a cost of $5, and created over 1500 paintings over his career. Although each portrait captures a distinct personality, his portraits share stiffly formal characteristics such as refined silk dresses, woolen coats, and mahogany furniture, along with other symbols of fashion, status, education, and civic-mindedness. The early portraits often depict their subjects with triangular-shaped shoulders and elf-like ears. The nephew of Lucretia Ashley Hubbard and Caleb Hubbard, Field stayed with the Hubbard family in Plumtrees from 1836, off and on during his career, and painted 11 members of the family. HD's collection of Hubbard family portraits by Field include: Caleb Hubbard (HD 89.044) and his wife, Lucretia Ashley Hubbard (HD 89.045); their son, Ashley Hubbard (HD 89.010) and two of his wife, Betsy Dole Hubbard (HD 89.010 and 89.046); and children, Israel Wales Hubbard (HD 2005.1), Nancy Henderson Hubbard (HD 2005.2), Parker Dole Hubbard (2005.21), Stephen Ashley Hubbard (HD 91.002), and Elizabeth Peck Hubbard (HD 91.002). After decades as an itinerant portrait painter, Field met the new competition from photography (introduced by his former teacher, Morse) by using the technology to provide his portraits with sharper realism; he later became interested in romantic, imaginative landscapes that illustrate religious allegories, and political and historical narratives, the best-known being his "Historical Monument of the American Republic" in the Museum of Fine Arts, Springfield, Mass. The probable inspiration for this painting was taken from a 'View of Petra from the Theatre' published in "Journey Through Arabia Petraea, to Mount Sinai, and the Excavated City of Petra, the Edom of the Prophecies" by Leon de Laborde (1807-1869), which was first sold in Paris from 1830-1833 on a subscription basis, became an indispensable guide for travel to the Middle East, and is still in print. Laborde travelled with Louis Linant de Bellefonds (1799-1883), staying in Petra from March 28 to April 3, 1828, both sketching and sharing the work. The scene shows a group of men in middle-eastern dress on a rise overlooking the ruins of an amphitheater, winding river, temples, and cliffs and snow-capped mountains in the background.
Tags:
landscapes; ruins Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+89.064 |
