Eustis Estate
Landscape at Cortina
Sarah Wyman Whitman (1842–1904)
Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, 1877–90
Oil on board
16 ½ x 20 ¼ in.
Gift of Julia Richardson
1966.399
This painting has long graced the South Berwick, Maine, bedroom of writer Sarah Orne Jewett (1849–1909) at Historic New England’s Jewett House. Among Jewett’s large circule of femail friends was Sarah Wyman Whitman, who painted this scene in Italy’s Dolomite Mountains. The abandoned plough on which the painting is focused may have appealed to Jewett, whose writing celebrated the earnest labor of Maine farmers.
Whitman studied with leading painters and eventually became one of the country’s most influential book designers. She was the lead designer for the Boston publisher Houghton Mifflin Company and designed virtually all the covers of Jewett’s books.