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| Artist: | Peter Caledon Cameron | |
| Title: | Absecon Island, New Jersey | |
| Year: | 1894 | |
| Media: | Watercolor on paper 17 1/2 × 27 inches (sight) | |
| Description: | Signed, dated, and inscribed at lower left: “ABSECON.ISLAND./ N.J—U.S.A/PCameron
[initials conjoined]/1894”
Inscribed in ink on mount verso: “Sandhills on Absecon Island, Coast of New
Jersey. U.S.A./painted on the spot from nature direct (no duplicates) in pure
water colors./by P. Caledon Cameron./This scene depicts a piece of the best
sand-dune region characteristic of the whole/coast of New Jersey State from
Sandy Hook point in the North to Cape May Point in/the extreme south./The artist
has travelled mostly on foot along the whole/extent of this coastline and here
many of his best subjects have been found./In no other region of the world
can be seen such marked evidences, as/here, of the building up of the continent
from the wind-blown sands of the sea. It is/supposed that the land surface
of the Earth is very slowly rising along this coast with/the effect of causing
the sand-banks along shore to form into long narrow islands/which extend for
hundreds of miles of outlying barrier on the east side of which the/Atlantic
surf beats incessantly and on the west or inside of which are vast lagoons
or/bays largely covered with a thick black vegetable deposit level with high
tide./The sand-dunes travel in ridges or waves westward ultimately covering/the
bays or drowned-lands (as Henrich Hudson called them) and these ridges of/Sand
often assume very curious forms. The picture shows one which in a/few weeks
totally disappeared as if removed by excavations, the wind alone having/performed
the mysterious labor/price without frame $ 100.00/Note—This study was made
for a setting for a large oil painting ‘Captain Kidd/burying his treasure’
which the artist has painted./It is well-known that Kidd when hard pressed
unloaded his pirate booty from his/ship at Absecon Island. He did not reckon
for the fact that the sandhills, in/time change their appearance and position;
therefore his buried treasure has/never been re-located although many have
searched for it.”
This watercolor was painted in 1894 and depicts
Absecon Island. The name Absecon is a corruption of the Indian word for “little
water,” an allusion to the saltwater lake or bay northwest of Atlantic City.
Absecon Creek, which forms the southern boundary of the town of Absecon, is
about nine miles long and flows into Absecon Bay. According to the U.S. Census,
Absecon had 530 permanent residents in 1900; the town was incorporated as a
city in 1902. In addition to representing what Cameron called “a piece of the
best sand-dune region characteristic of the whole coast of New Jersey State
from Sandy Hook point in the North to Cape May Point in the extreme south,” Absecon
Island, New Jersey served as the setting for a large oil painting, Captain
Kidd Burying His Treasure (location unknown). Around 1698 the famous
Scottish privateer Captain William Kidd sailed up the Atlantic Coast from the
Caribbean to Boston, where he hoped to defend himself from charges of piracy.
He stopped at a number of places in New Jersey (and elsewhere), where he was
rumored to have buried a considerable treasure. Because pirates were known
to have stopped at Cape May to obtain fresh water, it was rumored that Kidd
had buried his treasure somewhere in that vicinity.
copyright © 2010 Schwarz Gallery | |
| Price: | Price upon request | |
| Inventory: | RS 5040 | |
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| Category: | •a:American•a:English•a:Luminist•beach•landscape•New Jersey•nineteenth century• | |
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