A Builder of Boats (c. 1904): Art, History and Details

A Builder of Boats (c. 1904) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is John George Brown (American, born England, 1831–1913).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Brown's preference for rural subjects in a time when the United States was undergoing rapid industrialization suggests nostalgia for the past. Indeed, A Builder of Boats, an image of an elderly craftsman working alone with hand tools in a tranquil setting replete with his sleeping dog, offered its contemporary audience a distinct alternative to mechanized factory production.

Object facts

• Title: A Builder of Boats
• Date: c. 1904
• Creator attribution: John George Brown (American, born England, 1831–1913)
• Culture: United States
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on canvas
• Dimensions: Framed: 98 x 120 x 11 cm (38 9/16 x 47 1/4 x 4 5/16 in.); Unframed: 80 x 101.6 cm (31 1/2 x 40 in.)
• Collection: American - Painting
• Department: American Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1972.905

A detail from the museum

The object held in the sitter’s right hand is a drawing compass.

Collection credit

Hinman B. Hurlbut Collection

Further reading listed by the museum

• American Federation of Arts. American Art Annual. Florence N. Levy, ed. volume XI. Boston: Noyes, Platt & Co, 1914.
• Cleveland Museum of Art. "A Check List: American Paintings and Water Colors of the Eighteenth, Nineteenth, and Early Twentieth Centuries in The Cleveland Museum of Art." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art. 60:1 (January, 1973). pp. 1-36.
• Lee, Sherman E. "The Year in Review for 1972." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art. 60:3 (March, 1973). pp. 63-115.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.