Eustis Estate
Forest Hall
Benjamin Champney (1817–1907)
New Ipswich, New Hampshire, c. 1850
Oil on canvas
30 1/2 39 ¼ in.
Gift of Caroline Krause
2019.29.1ab
When Benjamin Champney returned to his hometown of New Ipswich, New Hampshire, in 1849 after nearly a decade training in Europe, the scenes he drew were not of the industries that thrived nearby. Rather, he depicted a peaceful agrarian landscape which he surely kept in his mind’s eye while living in Paris. Frederic Kidder and Augustus Gould used several of Champney’s drawings as illustrations in their History of New Ipswich, published in 1852. Champney also turned some of the drawings into large-scale paintings like this one showing Forest Hall, now Historic New England’s Barrett House, nestled into the hillside.
