Painting

Title:

Lewis W. Nute Farm, Milton, New Hampshire

Object Name:

Painting

Object ID:

2017.017.01

Creator:

Shapleigh, Frank H. (1842-1906); Frost & Adams

Date:

1880

Description:

Landscape painting, Lewis W. Nute Farm, Milton, NH, by Frank H. Shapleigh (1842-1906); 1880. Oil on canvas. Depicts a white farmhouse, gray barn, and lane with two cows and a boy; stone wall on each side of lane; green trees on left; and blue sky with white clouds. Signed "F. H. Shapleigh 1880", lower right corner. Printed paper label adhered to back of stretcher: "SOLD BY / FROST & ADAMS, / 37 Cornhill, Boston." In floral gilded gesso frame with velvet and gilt liner.

Material:

Textile

Dimensions:

H-22 W-36 inches

Provenance:

This painting was commissioned and owned by Lewis Worster Nute (1820-1888) of Boston, MA, and Milton, NH. A native of Milton, Nute moved to Boston in 1840, where he found employment as a clerk in a succession of boot and shoe manufacturing firms. By 1853 he had saved enough money to buy an interest in a shoe manufacturing business, succeeding to full ownership in 1863. Eventually he established factories in Natick, MA, and Dover, NH, to supply his business. Later in life he bought a farm in Milton.

The painting was formerly in the collection of New Hampshire antiques dealer and collector Peter Carswell. Prior to that, it belonged to a private collector who loaned it to the New Hampshire Historical Society in 1982 for inclusion in the exhibition "Full of Facts and Sentiment: The Art of Frank H. Shapleigh."

Artist Frank H. Shapleigh, the son of John Henry and Harriet Newell (Powers) Shapleigh, was born in Boston, MA, in 1842. He attended Boston public schools and studied art at the Lowell Institute of Drawing. Initially a portrait painter, by the late 1860s he began painting landscapes. After studying art in Europe, he returned to Boston in 1869, where he maintained a studio through the 1890s. A member of the Boston Art Club, Shapleigh kept seasonal studios in Crawford Notch, NH, Boston, MA, and St. Augustine, FL. In 1893 Shapleigh began to work in and show watercolor landscapes. Traveling periodically to Europe, he built a summer home and studio in Jackson, NH, in 1898. He died of heart failure at his Jackson home in 1906.

Credit Line:

New Hampshire Historical Society Purchase

People:

Shapleigh, Frank H. (1842-1906), Nute, Lewis W. (1820-1888)

Subjects:

Farms, Farmhouses, Farmsteads, Milton, NH