Search our Site


A Bit on Marblehead Neck by James David Smillie

A Bit on Marblehead Neck by James David Smillie

A Bit on Marblehead Neck

James David Smillie

Title

A Bit on Marblehead Neck

 
Artist

James David Smillie

  1833 - 1909 (biography)
Year
1883  
Technique
etching 
Image Size
4 7/8 x 12" platemark 
Signature
pencil, lower right; in the plate, lower right image 
Edition Size
first state proof, outside of edition printed for "Original Etchings by American Artists" 
Annotations
pencil titled and annotated "First State" and "J.D.S. imp" in lower margin; in plate, lower right: "No 25" and "N.Y.'83" 
Reference
JDS25; Witthoft 28 
Paper
cream simile-vellum 
State
I/II 
Publisher
Cassell & Co; for Original Etchings by American Artists 
Inventory ID
BC064 
Price
SOLD
Description

This is a rare first state of this etching, before a fourth sheep was added in the second state. The image was selected by S.R. Koehler to be included in his 1883 portfolio 'Original Etchings by American Artists' and then was included in his 1885 'Gems of American Etchers.'

James David Smillie did two images in Marblehead, Massachusetts of the Marblehead Neck Causeway, a peninsula that extends into Massachusetts Bay. He did a number of sketches and watercolors in the summer of 1882 and began creating two etchings of the scene at his studio in Montrose, Pennsylvania in 1883, this image, "A Bit on Marblehead Neck" and "Causeway - Marblehead Neck."

The etching was described in 'Gems of American Etchers': "'A Bit on Marblehead Neck' presents very nearly a literal view of Marblehead Neck. The only liberty he has taken is observable in the headland which is thrown out toward the sea like a flying buttress on the left....and which he has connected with the main land, while it is, in fact, the southern end of Tinker's Island."