Daniel Huntington, American, 1816–1906 - Artists Sketching at Chocorua Pond, New Hampshire - September 28, 1854 v2 - T-Shirt

This graphite sketch shows a group of artists working outdoors at Chocorua Pond in New Hampshire, recorded on September 28, 1854.

Visual Elements & Composition

The image is a horizontal sheet drawn in pencil on parchment-toned paper, with graphite grey and light grey doing nearly all the work. A range of mountains fills the upper distance, and the still lake below reflects its slopes. A tall, leafy tree rises on one side, balancing the open water. In the foreground, seated figures rest on a stone wall of rocks, with one small figure set apart at the lower edge. A tiny building with a pitched roof sits near the shoreline. Faint pencilled notes, including the word "Chicoma" and a date notation, appear along the margins.

Meaning & Symbolism

Huntington was a prominent American painter known for portraiture, historical painting and landscapes, and he is associated with the Hudson River School and the National Academy of Design. The sketch reflects the mid-nineteenth-century practice of painting en plein air, when American artists turned to the nation's mountains and lakes for inspiration. The wilderness was widely treated as a source of national identity and spiritual renewal, and the figures here are shown absorbed in that landscape. Their shared sketching also records a working community, where artists compared observations and refined ideas about how to interpret scenery.

Wearing the Artwork

A sketch this quiet rewards a closer look, and a tee brings it into that range. The mountains, lake and seated figures sit across the chest, where the eye settles on the composition's balance of open water and dark trees. Up close, the pencil marks and the pale margins read as a hand-drawn record. From across a room, the scene reads as a single calm landscape, the way a viewer first meets it in the original sheet.