Oil on canvas, 17 1/8 x 21 1/4”
Signed lower left

Mystic Valley

Edward H. Barnard (1855-1909)

A noted Boston artist, Barnard began summering in Mystic, Connecticut, in 1892, almost certainly because his artist friend Charles H. Davis had just settled there. Before leaving France in 1889 for a teaching job in the Boston area, Barnard saw an exhibition of paintings by Claude Monet that transformed him from a figural painter into a landscapist. Monet’s pictures, he said, showed him how to paint outdoor light. Barnard declared the atmosphere of the Connecticut shoreline to be the best he knew for painting.