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Cottage at Franconia
Samuel L. Gerry (1813–91)
Signed, lower right: “S L Gerry”; titled lower left; undated, circa 1880s
Pastel and charcoal on paper (22 1/2 x 30 1/4 in., framed)
Collection of P. Andrews and Linda H. McLane
Gerry was partial to charcoal as well as watercolor during the 1880s. This drawing demonstrates how the monochromatic appearance of charcoal, with its limited range of tones, could give “the effect of a fine steel engraving,” as a Boston art columnist reported in the Boston Evening Transcript about another Gerry charcoal drawing in March 1877. Although this drawing is undated, Gerry is known to have stayed during several summers in the early 1880s at the Sunset Hill House in Sugar Hill, near Franconia.
