An ideal example of Heade's signature marsh views, Newburyport Meadows was probably executed about 1872–78—the years during which its original owner, Senator Stephen Dorsey of Arkansas, resided in Washington, D.C. Dorsey took the painting with him to New Mexico, where it hung in the grand mansion that he built at Mountain Springs about 1880. Because it was long kept in a glass-covered shadow box, this painting survives in remarkably fresh condition and retains its original painted and gilded frame.

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