Lake Memphremagog (c. 1880s): Art, History and Details

Lake Memphremagog (c. 1880s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Harry Fenn (American, 1838/45–1911).

The work and its context

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

This watercolor reveals the technical virtuosity of Harry Fenn, an illustrator famed for his rich handling of detail and his bizarre sense of fantasy. As a young man, Fenn sketched widely in the United States for a lavish two-volume set titled Picturesque America. After 1881, he devoted himself to watercolor painting and illustrating. This watercolor represents Lake Memphremagog, which extends across the border of America and Canada, from North Vermont into South Quebec.

Object facts

• Title: Lake Memphremagog
• Date: c. 1880s
• Creator attribution: Harry Fenn (American, 1838/45–1911)
• Culture: America
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: watercolor and gouache over graphite
• Dimensions: Sheet: 34.3 x 47.4 cm (13 1/2 x 18 11/16 in.)
• Collection: DR - American 19th Century
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 1976.115

Collection credit

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Noah L. Butkin

Further reading listed by the museum

• Rainey, Sue. Creating a World on Paper: Harry Fenn's Career in Art. Amherst, Mass.; Boston, Mass. : University of Massachusetts Press, 2013.

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.