Mary Blood Mellen

Childs Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts
Acquired by the present owner from the above, 1967

The present work is one among a series of moonlight seascapes the artist produced throughout the 1870s. According to John Wilmerding, "most of Mellen's moonlight paintings are views across Gloucester Harbor, with the lighthouse on Ten Pound Island in the far left distance" (John Wilmerding, Fitz Henry Lane & Mary Blood Mellen: Old Mysteries and New Discoveries, New York, 2007, p. 42). The present work follows the same compositional format as Mellen's others from the period: rendered with ambient light, amorphous rocks which form the Gloucester coastline and a beached ship parked on the shore. A major work by Mellen of the same subject, Moonlight, Gloucester Harbor, 1870s, can be found in the collection of the Shelburne Museum, Shelburne, Vermont.