Eustis Estate
View of Boston Across the Flats
Ernest Wadsworth Longfellow (1845–1921)
Boston, 1876
Oil on canvas
14 3/8 x 18 1/8 in.
Gift of Dorothy S. F. M. Codman
1969.821
This view from Winthrop is one that Ernest Wadsworth Longfellow’s contemporaries would have recognized by the skyline’s distinctive features, including the steeple of the Park Street Church and the dome of the Massachusetts State House. The trees in the foreground draw viewers into the composition, which relies on the huge sky to underscore the vast flatness below.
Admired for figure paintings as well as landscapes, the artist was the son of the famous poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, attended Harvard University, then studied art in France, and traveled widely.