History Commons^™

Maria J.C. A’ Becket: Rediscovering An American Artist, Christopher Volpe

Maine History

Maria J.C. a’ Becket (or Beckett, as she originally spelled her name) got her start as an artist in Portland, Maine and moved on to new venues in Boston, New York, Bar Harbor, and St.Augustine. She studied in France with well-known Barbizon School landscape painters and returned to American to develop a distinctly personal and American version of the genre. Although her work and legacy are obscure today, Becket was a pioneer professional woman painter and arguably the first woman to build a career as a landscape painter by popularizing the Barbizon style in America. Christopher Volpe moved to New …

William King, First Governor Of Maine: His Known Portraits And Their Stories, Deanna Bonner-Ganter

Maine History

This article studies the known studio portraits of William King (1768-1852), first governor of Maine, finding that the leader’s personal life and professional travels led to sittings with such noted master painters as Gilbert Stuart, Edward Greene Malbone, and Chester Harding. These living portraits reflect period styles, while later likenesses require a broad understanding of formal state portraiture and its historical elements. One portrait, having resurfaced recently, was found to have hung in the Hall of Flags in the State Capitol for almost thirty years; others required considerable research to determine their provenance. The Honorable James G. Blaine played an …

Technology To The Rescue! Maine’S First State Colors, David Martucci

Maine History

The State of Maine's 1822 issue of 100 stands of double-sided Militia colors is possibly the earliest example of copper engraved four-color printed flags. These flags were produced in Boston utilizing the talents of a famous painter/designer, John Ritto Penniman and several local craftsmen and craftswomen. The design is unique and finely detailed and is an excellent example of the fine printing arts. Dave Martucci, a vexillologist, currently serves as president of the North American Vexillological Association and Secretary (Treasurer of the New England Vexillological Association. He edits Nava News and the NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF VEXILLOLOGY and has published …

Jeremiah P. Hardy’S The Smelt Seller Genre Painting In Bangor, Molly Mulhern Gross

Maine History

As a painter of portraits and genre studies, Jeremiah P. Hardy was a sensitive barometer of Bangor’s cultural aspirations. During his career, which spanned sixty-two years, he painted hundreds of portraits, then shifted to genre painting a course reflecting both national trends and the altered meanings of gentility in Bangor. In this article, Molly Mulhern Gross provides other reasons for Hardy’s mid-career change and explains why The Smelt Seller might have appealed to its cultured viewers. Ms. Mulhern Gross met The Smelt Seller while working as a research associate at the Farnsworth Art Museum in 1992. Her research was part …

Winslow Homer’S Seascapes: Transcendental Subjects, Popular Resorts, Critical Reactions, Priscilla Paton

Maine History

Winslow Homer, acknowledged as a quintessential Yankee and one of America 's foremost nineteenth century artists, seems as formidable, stern, and ambiguous as the rocky shores that fascinated him. Homer's reception by critics highlights the impossibility of separating artistic achievement from the tastes and fashions of the society in which the artist worked. The “mystifyingly blank" faces that critics abhorred in Homer's early farm figures became the distinctively attractive features of his later seascapes.

Our Lady Of Victories, Pamela W. Hawkes

Maine History

This article describes the process and competition for the design of the Portland Soldiers and Sailors Monument.

Maine Militia Flag: 4th Regiment Of Infantry, 1st Brigade, 4th Division, Maine Adjutant General

Maine Bicentennial

Following Maine's separation from Massachusetts in 1820, state officials were required to return all militia flags and other ceremonial paraphernalia to Massachusetts. As a result, Maine's Adjutant General and Acting Quarter Master Samuel Cony was required to provide new flags to approximately 100 civilian militia companies across the state.

Cony devised the first-known mass production of militia flags by ordering the moose and pine tree design, originally painted by John Ritto Penniman of Boston, engraved onto a copper plate for the four-color lithographic process. The State Arms was printed twice on white silk for each flag and one print was …