Captain George Waymouth on the Georges River, composition drawing

Artist:

N.C. Wyeth

(American, 1882 - 1945)

Captain George Waymouth on the Georges River, composition drawing

Medium: Charcoal on paper
Date: 1937
Dimensions:
44 1/4 × 35 5/8 in. (112.4 × 90.5 cm)

Brandywine Museum of Art, Bequest of Carolyn Wyeth, 1996

Accession number: 96.1.519
Research Number: NCW: 2078
Inscribedon verso in graphite at center top: Mr Sanborn / four lantern slides / N. C. Wyeth / Care of Mr. Widener / N. W. Cor. Pennsylvania Ave. and Woodlawn
ProvenanceThe artist; Mrs. N. C. Wyeth; Carolyn Wyeth
Curatorial RemarksThe Brandywine River Museum holds a lantern slide (NCWS.95.1825.133) made from the drawing and used in the transfer of the image from paper to panel (NCW 979). (The lantern slide depicts the complete drawing, not one quarter of it, so the note quoted above in inscriptions must have referred to other drawings that were sent along with this one.)
On Sept. 21, 1937, while working on this composition, Wyeth wrote to Kenneth Roberts: "I have of course, gone up and down the Georges, between the islands and Thomaston, many times. Recently I rowed up the west branch above Thomaston as far as I could go which is but a few miles--just a narrow stream with plenty of quick water. Waymouth could not possibly [have] taken his ship further in than Thomaston so I am showing her at anchor in the channel there, with Waymouth and nine other men in a ships small boat making their way further up the stream. It is logical to think that the "Archangel" sailed up the Georges before a gentle following wind out of the southwest, and probably on a coming tide, near full." (Kenneth Roberts Papers, Courtesy of Dartmouth College Library)
Image Source for printed Catalogue Raisonne:photography directly from artwork
Photo Credit:Rick Echelmeyer