A shoreline landscape with a large rock in the center that occupies most of the image.
Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College
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Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College

Soft sunlight illuminates the top of the rock from upper left, casting a shadow in the lower right. The rock is mostly light grey in color with light brown to dark brown on its underside, with darker greys on the right in the shadow. Smaller rocks of similar color around it rest on this rocky shore which slopes slightly downward toward the left. There’s a hint of blue water between the rocks on the left with a shore of pine trees beyond the water.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
1926.33.92
People
Charles Herbert Moore, American (New York, NY 1840 - 1930 Harley Witney, Hampshire, England)
Title
Rocks by the Water
Classification
Drawings
Work Type
drawing
Date
c. 1865-1872
Culture
American
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/303599

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Watercolor and white gouache over graphite on cream wove paper
Dimensions
14.3 x 19.7 cm (5 5/8 x 7 3/4 in.)

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Fine Arts Department, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA; transferred to Fogg Art Museum, 1926.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Transfer from the Fine Arts Department, Harvard University
Accession Year
1926
Object Number
1926.33.92
Division
European and American Art
Contact
am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Publication History

  • Frank Jewett Mather, Charles Herbert Moore: Landscape Painter, Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ, 1957), p. 40, fig. 25
  • Marjorie B. Cohn, Wash and Gouache: A Study of the Development of the Materials of Watercolor, exh. cat., Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, 1977), pp. 9, 103, 105, cat. 42
  • Linda S. Ferber and William H. Gerdts, The New Path: Ruskin and the American Pre-Raphaelites, exh. cat., Brooklyn Museum (Brooklyn, NY, 1985), catalogue no. 49, reproduced in b/w fig. 27, p. 90, and on p. 198
  • Marjorie Shelley, "'Splendid Mountain,' a Sketchbook by the Young John Singer Sargent", Metropolitan Museum Journal (New York, NY, 1993), vol. 28, pp. 185-205, p. 205, note 33
  • Masterpieces of world art : Fogg Art Museum, Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Busch-Reisinger Museum, 1997
  • Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr., Virginia Anderson, Melissa Renn, and Susan C. Ricci, The Last Ruskinians: Charles Eliot Norton, Charles Herbert Moore, and Their Circle, exh. cat., Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 2007), pp. 65, 93, pl. 17
  • Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr., Virginia Anderson, and Kimberly Orcutt, ed., American Paintings at Harvard, Volume Two, Paintings, Drawings, Pastels and Stained Glass by Artists Born 1826-1856, Harvard Art Museums and Yale University Press (U.S.) (Cambridge, MA and New Haven, CT, 2008), p. 236, cat. 186, ill.
  • Kathleen A. Foster, American Watercolor in the Age of Homer and Sargent, exh. cat., Philadelphia Museum of Art (Philadelphia, 2017), p. 52, fig. 41
  • Linda S. Ferber and Nancy K. Anderson, The American Pre-Raphaelites: Radical Realists, exh. cat., National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC, 2019), pl. 55, pp. 3, 74, 81, 230, detail repr. front endpapers

Exhibition History

  • Wash and Gouache: A Study of the Development of the Materials of Watercolor, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 05/12/1977 - 06/22/1977
  • The New Path: Ruskin and the American Pre-Raphaelites, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, 03/29/1985 - 06/10/1985; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Boston, 07/03/1985 - 09/08/1985
  • The Last Ruskinians: Charles Eliot Norton, Charles Herbert Moore, and Their Circle, Harvard University Art Museums, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 04/07/2007 - 07/08/2007
  • The American Pre-Raphaelites: Radical Realists, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 04/14/2019 - 07/21/2019
  • The Art of Looking: 150 Years of Art History at Harvard, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 01/25/2025 - 05/11/2025

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Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of European and American Art at am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu