Maine Coast
date: label: Date made
content: 1880
name: label: graphic artist
content: Smillie, James David
notes: label: Description
content: James David Smillie etched <i>Old Cedars, Coast of Maine</i>, one of his best known prints, for the <i>American Art Review</i>, which published it in October 1880. The print reproduced his own watercolor, painted while on holiday in the summer of 1879 in Kennebunkport.
label: Description
content: For this print, as detailed in his journal, Smillie made a drawing of the watercolor and transferred it to a prepared plate. Originality was not an issue at this time. Artists sometimes etched replicas after their own work in other media. Most highly valued, however, were the etchings conceived and then drawn directly on the plate.
label: Description
content: The popularity of <i>Old Cedars</i> is indicated by the attempt of German painter-etcher Hans Friedrich Emanuel Schennis (1852–1918) to pass off his copy in reverse as the original print. However, Schennis’s fraud was exposed and the fake and the original were shown together in a New York exhibition in 1885.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: Associated Place
content: United States: Maine
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Graphic Arts
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content: Ferris Collection
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content: Communications
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content: Art
publisher: label: Related Publication
content: Brucia Witthoft. The Fine-Arts Etchings of James David Smillie 1833-1909
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Jean Leon Gerome Ferris
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: GA.14869
label: catalog number
content: 14869
label: accession number
content: 94830
objectType: label: Object Name
content: print
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: paper (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: ink (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: image: 12.5 cm x 17.5 cm; 4 15/16 in x 6 7/8 in
label: Measurements
content: sheet: 23.5 cm x 31 cm; 9 1/4 in x 12 3/16 in