JANE PETERSON (1876-1965)
$125,000
Provenance
The Estate of Jane Peterson, Gloucester, MassachusettsJ. Jonathan Joseph, through 1975
A Boston Collection, 1975-1999
Marco Apollo and Patricia Pierce, 1999-2001
A Boston Collection
This large canvas captures a quiet coastal afternoon, with a dirt road leading toward Gloucester Harbor as suggested by the title. Peterson uses saturated colors and broad, lively brushstrokes to animate the scene, from the touches of blue on the rooftops to the shifting interplay of blue and grey in the retreating sky that suggests a moment just after rainfall. The painting relates closely to other Gloucester works in major museum collections, including Old Road, Gloucester at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
Peterson was known for choosing subjects beyond the conventional expectations for women artists of her time, favoring street scenes, travel, public life, and even wartime experience. The Road to the Harbor, Gloucester, Massachusetts embodies this outward looking spirit, revealing her ability to transform everyday coastal paths into scenes of vivid immediacy and enduring charm.

