Frederick Sturges

American, 1833 - 1917

Explore Selected Works

A placid river winds past low hills with cows to fields blanketed with trees leading back to mountains lining the horizon in this hazy, horizontal, landscape painting. The river curves in a tight backward C shape from the lower left corner of the composition. The right half of the foreground closest to us is made up of a gently sloping, grass-covered hill alongside the water. Four cows graze in the sunshine closer to the water, and the right portion is in deep shade under towering trees that nearly fill the right half of the composition. Logs, moss-covered boulders, stones, and plants line the bottom edge of the painting. Languid, golden light works across the treetops in the middle distance. The mountains along the horizon, which comes about a third of the way up this painting, are slate gray. The sky above is streaked with pale yellow near the horizon and deepens to pale blue along the top edge of the canvas. A few deeply shaded, ivory-yellow clouds float across the sky. The artist signed and dated the painting in the lower center, “A B Durand 1858.”
Asher Brown Durand, A Pastoral Scene, 1858, oil on canvas, Gift of Frederick Sturges, Jr., 1978.6.3

A Pastoral Scene

Asher Brown Durand · 1858 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1978.6.3

A pink-toned sandy beach meets a placid body of pale blue water under a hazy sky in this horizontal landscape painting. To our left, the beach curves like a letter C to end in the near distance with a terracotta-orange rocky outcropping and a boulder, which comes halfway across the composition. Muted green trees grow atop the outcropping, and the left half is blanketed in moss or grass. A white rowboat has been pulled into the sand about halfway along the beach. One person sits or crouches inside, and a red cloth or net hangs over the side closer to us. A person wearing a straw hat, white, long-sleeved shirt, and brown pants carries a basket over one arm as they walk away from us, not far from the rowboat. The water is very light blue where it laps gently at the shore but is washed by diffuse sunlight to parchment white in the distance. The horizon, which comes a third of the way up the canvas, nearly blends into the milky white bank of clouds above. A few sailboats are near the horizon on the right half of the painting, and a few small patches of blue sky show through the clouds in the upper right corner.
John Frederick Kensett, Beach at Beverly, c. 1869/1872, oil on canvas, Gift of Frederick Sturges, Jr., 1978.6.5

Beach at Beverly

John Frederick Kensett · c. 1869/1872 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1978.6.5

Cool light filters through a thick, verdant forest in this vertical landscape painting. Most of the trees have high canopies with celery, matcha, and olive-green leaves. Moss carpets the trunks of five trees looming over us from across a narrow brook. Dead, sienna-brown tree limbs with sharp, broken branches lie scattered in the dense vegetation on the forest floor. The trees and undergrowth recede into the distance where a gap reveals a glimpse of a blue-gray mountain silhouetted against a milky sky. The artist signed the lower right, “ABD.”
Asher Brown Durand, Forest in the Morning Light, c. 1855, oil on canvas, Gift of Frederick Sturges, Jr., 1978.6.2

Forest in the Morning Light

Asher Brown Durand · c. 1855 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1978.6.2

We look across a dark, aquamarine-blue body of water at a bulky, stony outcropping to our right in this horizontal landscape painting. The horizon comes about a third of the way up the composition, and the sky above is pale blue, lightening to almost white along the horizon. Close to us, gentle waves break over rocks and boulders along the beach. The face of the rocky outcropping to our right rises vertically from the water and is tan and caramel brown, with some dark green vegetation growing in its crevasses. At its foot, down by the water, a lone fisherman with a pole stands on a rock casting his line. He wears a red shirt and brown pants, and is tiny in scale next to the rock formation. Farther in the distance, to our left along the horizon, a spring-green spit of land extends into the water. White boats with full sails are visible in the distance. One boat is silhouetted against a far, sunbathed shore.
John Frederick Kensett, Beacon Rock, Newport Harbor, 1857, oil on canvas, Gift of Frederick Sturges, Jr., 1953.1.1

Beacon Rock, Newport Harbor

John Frederick Kensett · 1857 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1953.1.1

Francis William Edmonds, The Bashful Cousin, c. 1841-1842, oil on canvas, Gift of Frederick Sturges, Jr., 1978.6.4

The Bashful Cousin

Francis William Edmonds · c. 1841-1842 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1978.6.4

John William Casilear, View on Lake George, 1857, oil on canvas, Gift of Frederick Sturges, Jr., 1978.6.1

View on Lake George

John William Casilear · 1857 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1978.6.1