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Photograph courtesy of Northeast Auctions, Portsmouth, NH
Painted overmantel and fireplace surround
Photograph courtesy of Northeast Auctions, Portsmouth, NH

Painted overmantel and fireplace surround

Date1780-1800
OriginAmerica, Connecticut, Northford
MediumOil on panel (primary support and wall paneling is tulip poplar, fireplace surround is hard pine)
DimensionsOverall: 85 1/2 x 56 7/8 x 2 1/8in. (217.2 x 144.5cm, 2 1/8in.); Raised portion of panel: 25 1/16 x 28 1/16in. (63.7 x 71.3cm); and Sight dimensions of panel including beveled edge: 27 x 29 7/8in. (68.6 x 75.9cm)
Credit LineGift of Juli Grainger
Object number2008.110.1
DescriptionA landscape scene painted on a raised, bevel-edged panel set within architectural framing above a fireplace opening trimmed with bolection molding. The fireplace surround no longer retains any paint. The scene shows a body of water intersected by a short peninsula at the left, with steep hills descending toward the middle of the picture in the distance. A small island sticks out of the water in the left middle foreground. A few buildings occupy the peninsula, considerably more occupy the distant shoreline. The buildings are variously colored (dark green, light blue, cream, yellow, red, etc.) Most of the buildings have multiple windows rendered by rectangles of black paint, but the windows in three of the buildings were rendered by a dotting technique. Many details contribute to the scene's compositional interest, e.g., a horse-drawn cart and a dog on the far shore, several sailing vessels plying the waterway, a man on the island shooting a waterfowl, and two horses that appear in profile, one each, on the steep hillsides in the distance. Trees are scattered about and fringe the tops of the distant hills. The lower right corner is filled with a bit of land that include a road with figures on it.

Artist unidentified.
Label TextThis fireplace surround with a harbor scene painted directly on the panel comes from the Tyler-Harrison House in Northford, Connecticut. Although the house was constructed in 1740, architectural features of the panel and the style of the painting suggest a date of 1780-1800. By that point, Thelus Todd (1763-1846) probably owned the house. The overmantle painting and its surrounding woodwork descended to his great-granddaughter, Ethel Wellman. While the subject of the painting is yet-to-be-identified, family members referred to the scene as the harbor at West Haven, Connecticut.

ProvenanceMiss Ethel I. Wellman and her brother, F. Gaylord Wellman, Northford, Conn.; Maison Auction Gallery, Wallingford, Conn.; by 1979, owned by Alexander Rollins Garfield, Avon, Conn.; Leigh Keno, New York, NY; sold to CWF's donor 4 March 1992.
Sometime before 21 May 1948, Ethel Wellman removed the object from the house in which it was originally installed, i.e., from the Tyler-Harrison (or Todd-Williams) house in Northford (or Branford), Connecticut. Wellman took the object to her own home, which was located just a "few feet away" from the Tyler-Harrison/Todd-Williams house, and kept it there until it was sold at auction by the Maison Gallery of Wallingford, Conn.
Little published the object in 1952 as having come from a house in "Northford, Connecticut," but in 1979, she referred to the town site as "North Branford[, Connecticut]."
Exhibition(s)