Frank Henry Shapleigh (American, 1842-1906) The City Gate, St. Augustine, Florida

Frank Henry Shapleigh (American, 1842-1906)

The City Gate, St. Augustine, Florida
Signed and dated "F.H. Shapleigh 1891." l.r., titled and inscribed "The City Gate. St. Augustine. Florida/by/F.H. Shapleigh." on the reverse, with a partial label from Frost & Adams, Boston, affixed to the reverse.
Oil on canvas, 20 x 14 in. (50.8 x 35.6 cm), framed.
Condition: Craquelure, minor stretcher marks.

Provenance: A Massachusetts estate.

N.B. Frank Henry Shapleigh was born in Boston, Massachusetts, where he maintained a studio from 1866 to 1907. Shapleigh studied at the Lowell Institute Drawing School in Boston and in Paris with Emile Lambinet, whose pastoral landscape style strongly influenced his work. After 1886, he wintered yearly at the Ponce de Leon Historical Hotel in Saint Augustine, Florida. Here he found the subjects of the city streets and bustling harbors to be an interesting contrast to the quiet views of New Hampshire's White Mountains, for which Shapleigh is best known.

Shapleigh painted views of the City Gate numerous times. The Gate - really just a pair of pillars - was built in 1808 using coquina, a local sedimentary rock. The City Gate still stands today, marking the north end of St. George Street.