Sand Bank with Willows, Magnolia

Hunt spent the summer of 1877 in Magnolia, a fishing village near Gloucester, on the Massachusetts coast. From there, he took short sketching trips in a wagon that served as a traveling studio. His biographer noted: “Arrived at the spot selected, Hunt would leap from the van, take a camp-stool and a block of charcoal paper, and, with a stick of soft charcoal seize the salient points of the subject to be rendered.” After his assistant reproduced the charcoal sketch on canvas back in the studio, Hunt would wait for the right moment, then “seize palette and brushes, and perhaps complete the picture in one sitting.” (Source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art)