1980-33-1

Made by Students

watercolor on paper

Lucy Sheldon Beach (1788-1889)

1802

Litchfield Historical Society

Litchfield, CT

10 3/8" length x 14 1/2" width

Watercolor on paper. Scene of a family gathered before the doorway of their thatched cottage, the open door of which is at left. The rocky shore with the shipwreck impaled upon a cliff can be glimpsed in the background between the cottage and a large oak tree to the right. The group includes, from left to right, grandmother seated in a rustic slat back chair in front of a crude table on which sits a small kitten; father in a blue smock and black hat and holding a pipe, standing in the doorway; mother with a small girl clinging to her skirts and wearing a striped fichu and aporn with a muslin cap on her curly hair. Central figures are a young boy and the sailor boy who looks much the worse for wear and not at all animated in the telling of his story. He wears a much bedraggled cabin boy's uniform ...of dark coat and light trousers. Two gray chickens are also present in the foreground but seem disinterested in the event. Framed - probably original - under glass.
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