At Five Ponds, North Waterford, Maine

Edward Seager

ca. 1845 · Graphite and sgraffito on buff-colored gessoed paper · The American Wing

Seager, a drawing instructor at the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis from 1850 to 1860, working with the uncommon technique of sgraffito, in which white highlights are produced by scratching through a layer of tinted gesso to reveal the white paper, Seager achieved effects approximating gouache highlights. He probably executed this drawing on a tour of southern Maine The view is west to the White Mountains where the uppermost peak among those relieved by the sweep of clouds is windblown Mount Washington, the crown of New England, the highest mountain in the Northeast and, since the early nineteenth century, both a tourist mecca and a perennial artists’ subject.

Artist

Edward Seager

Date

ca. 1845

Medium

Graphite and sgraffito on buff-colored gessoed paper

Culture

American

Department

The American Wing

Credit line

Purchase, Vain and Harry Fish Foundation Inc. Gift, 1982