Broad Cove

One of the leading American Impressionists, Childe Hassam found steady inspiration in the Isles of Shoals, off the coast of New Hampshire particularly on Appledore Island where he spent many summers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He was first drawn there in 1886 by Celia Laighton Thaxter, a prominent American poet who lived on the island and hosted many literary and artistic luminaries at her father’s hotel, Appledore House. Hassam scoured the island for subjects, painting them so accurately, albeit in his impressionist style, that they are still recognizable in the island’s unchanged geography today. This painting represents Broad Cove on Appledore Island, a northeast-facing inlet, popular for watching sunrises. Hassam repeatedly returned to Appledore for its peaceful solitude, making visits across thirty years that produced dozens of paintings of the tiny island.