Harbor of Boston, with the City in the Distance (c. 1846–47): Art, History and Details

Harbor of Boston, with the City in the Distance (c. 1846–47) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Fitz Henry Lane (American, 1804–1865).

The work and its context

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

In this late afternoon view of Boston Harbor, Lane masterfully evoked the diffuse quality of sunlight reflecting off water. The artist was a son of a shipbuilder, so perhaps it is not surprising that his renderings of ships and their intricate riggings are painstakingly accurate. On the far left side of the painting, evolving technology appears in the guise of a steamboat, which ferried passengers between Boston and Gloucester.

Object facts

• Title: Harbor of Boston, with the City in the Distance
• Date: c. 1846–47
• Creator attribution: Fitz Henry Lane (American, 1804–1865)
• Culture: United States
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on canvas
• Dimensions: Framed: 66 x 104.8 x 14 cm (26 x 41 1/4 x 5 1/2 in.); Unframed: 43.2 x 68.6 cm (17 x 27 in.)
• Collection: American - Painting
• Department: American Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 2004.35

A detail from the museum

For a long time, art historians mistakenly thought the artist’s middle name was Hugh.

Collection credit

Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund and partial gift of Travers Newton, Joanna Newton Riccardi and Georgia Newton Pulos

Further reading listed by the museum

• "Major Acquisitions 2000-2005." Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 45, no. 6 (July/August 2005): 6-17.
• Adams, Henry. What's American about American art?: a gallery tour in the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2008.

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.