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The Old Pine, Darien, Connecticut

1872
Not on view
The varieties of transparent light and air along New England's coast preoccupied Kensett throughout the last decade of his life. In 1872, the year of his death, he spent the entire summer painting on his island, called Contentment, in Long Island Sound off Darien, Connecticut, painting the local sky, water, rocks, and trees in compositions such as this one. Among the so-called "last summer's work" that Kensett's brother, Thomas, donated to the Metropolitan Museum in 1874, this picture is somewhat unusual in its almost reverent devotion to tree portraiture. The deliberate application typifying the artist's style possesses little of the summary elegance of Japanese ink-painting, yet both his subject and his delicacy of touch evoke Asian art.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: The Old Pine, Darien, Connecticut
  • Artist: John Frederick Kensett (American, Cheshire, Connecticut 1816–1872 New York)
  • Date: 1872
  • Culture: American
  • Medium: Oil on canvas
  • Dimensions: 34 3/8 x 27 1/4 in. (87.3 x 69.2 cm)
  • Credit Line: Gift of Thomas Kensett, 1874
  • Object Number: 74.38
  • Curatorial Department: The American Wing

More Artwork

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[Photographs of paintings by J. F. Kensett]
John Frederick Kensett
1874 (?)
Lake George, 1872, John Frederick Kensett American, Oil on canvas, American
Lake George, 1872
John Frederick Kensett
1872
Seated female figures, train in left background, ship in right background (bank note design)
John Frederick Kensett
ca. 1835–72
Bank Note Element: A Woman in Classical Robes Embracing a Large Broken Stone Letter "I", with a Distant Sailing Ship to the Left and a Factory to the Right
John Frederick Kensett
1835–72
Bank Note Element: Three Cupids with Tendrils
John Frederick Kensett
1835–72

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