Lithograph

Title:

Haymaking in the Green Mountains

Object Name:

Lithograph

Object ID:

2020.020

Creator:

Champney, Benjamin (1817-1907)Artist; Prang, Louis & Company (1860-1897)Lithographer

Place of Origin:

Boston, MA

Date:

circa 1871

Description:

Chromolithograph of Haymaking in the Green Mountains, after Benjamin Champney, c. 1871. Printed by Louis Prang & Company, Boston, MA. Printed on textured paper mounted on cardboard. "HAYMAKING / IN THE GREEN MOUNTAINS. / AFTER BENJ. CHAMPNEY." printed on paper label attached underneath scene. "B. Champney 1871" printed in red, lower left corner. "PRANG'S / AMERICAN CHROMOS. / BOSTON", printed in red, lower right corner.

Material:

Paper

Dimensions:

H-15 W-24.25 inches

Provenance:

Artist Benjamin Champney (1817-1907) was born in New Ipswich, NH, the son of Benjamin and Rebecca (Brooks) Champney. He attended district school and the Appleton Academy, New Ipswich, before being apprenticed to Robert Moore of Boston as a lithographer in 1835. In 1838 he made the first of many drawing trips to the White Mountains, where he found inspiration for his paintings for the rest of his life. Initially a lithographer, during the 1840s he established a studio on Boston and focused on landscape painting, traveling through Maine, Vermont, the Berkshires, and the Catskills. In 1853, Champney married Mary Caroline Brooks (1829-1876) of Woburn, MA, and they purchased a home in North Conway, where he spent summers producing and selling paintings to tourists. A member of the Boston Art Club, he frequently exhibited paintings there as well as at the Boston Athenaeum, National Academy of Design, American Art Union, and Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Champney traveled to Europe in 1841, 1847, and 1865 for study and inspiration. When not visiting Europe, the artist divided his time between homes in North Conway and Woburn, MA, where he died in 1907.

Louis Prang & Company began to make chromolithographs of Benjamin Champney paintings in 1870. Dodge, Collier & Perkins, 115 Washington Street, Boston, advertised this and other chromolithographs in newspapers throughout the northeast U.S. in 1872 and 1873. According to Katharine McClinton, Prang produced at least six chromolithographs after paintings by Champney, including Mount Kearsarge, Mount Chocorua, Artist's Brook, North Conway Meadows, Pumpkin Time, and Haymaking in the Green Mountains.

Credit Line:

New Hampshire Historical Society Purchase

People:

Champney, Benjamin (1817-1907)

Subjects:

Hay, Haystacks, Green Mountains, Mount Mansfield, Mountains, Chromolithographs