Description
One of the Isles of Shoals located off the coast of Maine and New Hampshire, Appledore Island was the home of the poet Celia Thaxter and attracted numerous artists and writers to its rocky shores during the late 19th century. The Little Pond, Appledore dates from Childe Hassam's first summer sojourn there, after three years spent working in Europe, and reflects his burgeoning interest in the bright palette, broken brushwork, and dramatic light effects of Impressionist painting.
Provenance
Private collection, by 1929 [lent to New York 1929]. Lauren Jay Drake Jr. (1880–1954), Chicago, by 1954; by descent to his niece, Theresa Mary Drake (1914–1982), San Francisco, by 1954; by descent to Dr. Gwendolyn Boyd, New Orleans, 1982 [Gwendolyn Boyd’s father, David Boyd, was Theresa Drake's cousin; correspondence from Mr. Andrew Graybar, Dec. 20, 1990, copy in curatorial object file]; sold to Hirschl and Adler Galleries, New York, 1984; sold to Marshall Field, Chicago, 1984; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1986.
Accession Number
105462
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
40.6 × 55.8 cm (16 × 22 in.)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
Through prior acquisition of the Friends of American Art and the Walter H. Schulze Memorial collections
Background & Context
Background Story
"The Little Pond, Appledore" is an 1890 oil on canvas by Childe Hassam that documents the artist's engagement with the Isles of Shoals, the island retreat off the coast of New Hampshire where he spent his summers and produced some of his most luminous and characteristic Impressionist landscapes. The composition shows a small pond surrounded by rocks and vegetation, the water reflecting the sky and the surrounding greenery with the broken color and shimmering light effects that Hassam had learned from Monet and that he applied to the American landscape with a freshness and immediacy that made his paintings feel like visual poetry. The Appledore subjects are central to Hassam's achievement: the island's gardens, cliffs, and seascapes provided a controlled environment where he could explore the effects of light and atmosphere without the compositional complexity of the city or the grandeur of the mountains. The 1890 date places this work in the early years of Hassam's mature Impressionist period, when he was producing the series of garden and coastal scenes that would establish his reputation as the American master of light and color. Art historians have compared this painting to the garden scenes of Monet and the coastal views of Boudin, noting that Hassam's treatment is more structurally defined, more architecturally composed than these French predecessors. The work also reflects the influence of Japanese prints on Hassam's composition: the high horizon, the flattened space, and the decorative patterning of the water all suggest the impact of the ukiyo-e tradition that informed so much late nineteenth-century painting.
Cultural Impact
This 1890 oil canvas made Isles of Shoals luminosity shimmer through broken-color reflection, using high-horizon Japanese-print flatness to transform American coastal pond into controlled Impressionist light-poetry.
Why It Matters
It matters because Hassam painted a tiny pond and made it feel like the whole ocean was hiding in it—proving that even the smallest water could hold the sky if the color was broken enough.
