William Trost Richards

Private Collection (acquired by descent from the artist)

Beacon Hill Fine Art, New York (acquired from the above)

Acquired from the above in May 1998 by the present owner

New York, Beacon Hill Fine Art, William Trost Richards: Rediscovered - Oils, Watercolors, and Drawings from the Artist's Family, 1996-97, no. 47, pp. 25-26, illustrated in color

Richards’s artistic development was shaped early on by the Hudson River School painters Thomas Cole and Jasper Francis Cropsey. By the 1860s, he became closely associated with the American Pre-Raphaelite movement, whose practitioners embraced the aesthetic philosophies of John Ruskin and pursued exacting naturalism under the leadership of Thomas Charles Farrer. Contemporary essayist Henry Tuckerman summarized Richards’s approach as, “putting into practice the extreme theories of the Pre-Raphaelites, stating that his leaves, grasses, grain-stalks, weeds, stones and flowers were so finished that 'we seem not to be looking at a distant prospect, but lying on the ground with herbage and blossom directly under our eyes’” (W. H. Gerdts, R. Burke, American Still-Life Painting, New York, 1971, p. 120).

In the present work, executed in the 1870s, Richards demonstrates this rigorous attention to detail through his panoramic rendering of Fort Dumpling and the surrounding coastline. He uses the natural contours of the headland to guide the viewer’s eye toward the point where the fort meets the sea, situating the structure under a cool, lightly clouded sky. The deserted site appears not as an active military post but as a relic gradually absorbed into the shoreline, its stone form softened by atmospheric light and the encroaching landscape.

Fort Dumpling, Jamestown conveys the quiet solitude and transience that became hallmarks of Richards’s coastal scenes. Through his precise handling of light, geography, and weather, Richards transforms the abandoned fort into a meditation on time, nature, and the shifting relationship between built structures and the surrounding environment. The work exemplifies his enduring ability to capture the New England coast across varied atmospheric conditions and stands as a refined expression of his mature vision.