Currently not on view
Winsted, Connecticut,
ca. 1877
Sarah E. Harvey, American, 1834–1924
y1958-100
Although Sarah Harvey claimed never to have received instruction in painting, she completed an estimated one thousand pictures over a career of more than six decades, all but one hundred given away to family and friends. Her subjects ranged widely, from still lifes to locations in Europe and the tropics based on print and photographic sources, but depictions of the local topography surrounding her Winsted, Connecticut, home were likely produced at least in part through direct observation. In this view of the thriving mill town at the confluence of the Mad and Still Rivers, an idealized quietude prevails. Shown devoid of human activity, the scene is rendered with such precision that individual buildings — some probably containing the paintings Harvey distributed locally as gifts — are clearly identifiable, including St. Joseph’s Church and Monastery at left and, most prominently, at far right, the Strong Manufacturing Company, makers of gilded coffin hardware.
Information
Title
Winsted, Connecticut
Dates
ca. 1877
Maker
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
45.5 x 71.1 cm (17 15/16 x 28 in.)
frame: 55.9 × 81.9 cm (22 × 32 1/4 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Edward Duff Balken, Class of 1897
Object Number
y1958-100
Place Depicted
United States, Connecticut, Winsted
Signatures
Signed at lower left: S. E. Harvey
Culture
Type
Subject
-
American provincial paintings, 1790-1877: from the collection of Edward Duff Balken: galleries E and F, January 9 through February 23, 1947, (Pittsburgh, PA: Department of Fine Arts, Carnegie Institute, 1947).
, cat. no. 25 -
American folk art: a collection of paintings presented in 1958 by Edward Duff Balken of the Class of 1897 to the Art Museum, Princeton University, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 1958).
, cat. no. 7 - "Recent Acquisitions," Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 18, no. 1 (1959): p. 40-42., p. 40
- "Gallery: given by Donald S. Morrison of the Class of 1915, and Mrs. Morrison," Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 25, no. 1/2 (1966): 39., p. 39 (illus.)
- "Another generation's folk art: Edward Duff Balken and his collection of American provincial paintings and drawings: appendix I: an inventory of works from the home of Edward Duff Balken", special issue, Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 57, no. 1/2 (1998): p. 29-30., p. 30
- Colleen Cowles Heslip and Charlotte Emans Moore, "Catalogue of the collection," in "A window into collecting American folk art: the Edward Duff Balken Collection at Princeton," special issue, Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University, 57, no. 1/2 (1998): p. 31-162., pp. 82–84, cat. no. 24 (illus.)
- Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collections (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2013), p. 340
