Charles Codman: from limner to landscape painter

Magazine Antiques, Nov, 2002 by Jessica Nicoll

(17.) Rosanna Negus, Petersham, to Nathan Negus, January 3, 1817 (Petersham Historical Society, Petersham, Massachusetts).

(18.) Nathan Negtrs, Boston, to Laura Negus, February 26, 1818 (ibid.).

(19.) Dunlap, History of the Rise and Progress of the Arts, vol. 2, part 1, p. 260.

(20.) Andrews, "John Ritto Penniman," p. 155.

(21.) Ibid., p. 156.

(22.) Portland Gazette, June 10, 1810, quoted in Andrews "John Ritto Penniman," pp. 153-154.

(23.) Quoted in Andrews, "John Ritto Penniman," p. 155.

(24.) Portland Eastern Argus, August 25, 1826.

(25.) Daily Eastern Argus, April 8, 1839.

(26.) For example, Jack Larkin, "The Fares of Change: Images of Self and Society in New England, 1790-1850," in Meet Your Neighbors: New England Portraits, Painters, and Society, 1790-1850, ed. Caroline F. Sloat (Old Sturbridge Village, Sturbridge, Massachusetts, 1992), p. 20, n. 6.

(27.) Eastern Argus, July 28, August 25, 1826, and June 6, 1828. Four of the standards have been located: Frontier Guard, Calais of 1839 (Maine Historical Society, Portland); Kennebec Guards of 1833 (Maine State Museum, Augusta); Thomaston Cavalry (Friends of Montpelier/General Henry Knox Museum, Thomaston); and Maine State Seal (Maine State Museum). Seven more standards are described in published accounts. He did at least two banners for "Total Abstinence Societies," of which the one for the Washington Total Abstinence Society in Ellsworth of 1842 survives in the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Maine. The Thomasion Cavalry standard has been attributed to Codman based on strong stylistic similarities to signed Codman banners. However, iconographic elements inconsistent with a date of c. 1822-1842, Codman's years in Portland, may indicate that the standard predates Codman's work or is based on an earlier standard.

(28.) Boston Annual Advertiser for 1822, and Eastern Argus, October 29, 1822; cited in Alice Knotts Bossert Cooney, "Ornamental Painting in Boston, 1790-1830" (Master's thesis, University of Delaware, Newark, 1978), p.49.

(29.) Eastern Argus, December 10, 1822 (notice of the opening), and March 31, 1825.

(30.) At least live fireboards were created for the Deering mansion, which was razed in the mid-1950s, and all but one were sold in 1949. Two are in museums, as mentioned in the text, but the whereabouts of the others are unknown. The one entitled View of Diamond Cove from Great Diamond Island is believed to be the genesis of Codman's Diamond Cove paintings, the earliest dated one being Diamond Cove, Great Diamond Island, Maine of 1829 (Portland Public Library). See a letter from Nina Little to John Hoverson, the director of the Portland Museum of Art, September 25, 1973 (Portland Museum of Art object files); and Jessica Skwire, "A Portrait of Nature: Diamond Cover and the American Landscape," in A Treasured Heritage: The Art and History of Great Diamond Island (Portland Museum of Art, Portland, Maine, 1997).

(31.) Charles Codman to James Deering (MS 100, p. 214, Deering family papers, Maine Historical Society. Portland).