Childe Hassam
Date:
1890
Medium:
Oil on canvas
Size:
Width: 23 1/4″
Height: 19 1/4″

Childe Hassam painted this canvas in poet Celia Thaxter’s parlor at the Isles of Shoals off the New Hampshire coast. The composition echoes the monochromatic bouquets she gathered from her famous garden, and his choice of Marechal Neil roses, named after a hero of the Crimean War, signals his commitment to battle for beauty in art. A lighthouse keeper’s daughter, Thaxter served as an aesthetic beacon, attracting 19th-century artists, writers, and musicians to Appledore Island, where she celebrated progressive art, music, and literature in a beautiful natural environment. Once deemed the most idiosyncratic watering place in the Union, Appledore became the prototype for early 20th-century American summer art colonies. Inspired by the parlor’s cultured atmosphere, the garden’s brilliant color, and the landscape’s wild beauty, Hassam created some of his finest work there.

What Are These Unusual Roses?

Transcript

[David Park Curry] Well, you know, in fact, these are very specific roses from a very specific place. They’re
Marshall Neil roses.
[Aaron Henkin] That’s a military connection. Marshall Adolphe Niel was a French military commander in
the Crimean War. Hassam had fought in the Crimean War, and so this strain of roses had a special meaning
for him.
[David Park Curry] They grew on Appledore, the Isles of Shoals off the Maine/New Hampshire coast, and
they were in the garden of Celia Thaxter. She was a very famous journalist and poet at the time. He painted
in her parlor and all kinds of literary and artistic and musical lions came there and they equated flowers
with art as far as the power of beauty was concerned.