Washington's Headquarters at Newburgh

Artist Sarah Hendrickson Van Schoick Reid

PeriodAfter 1856

MediumPastel and charcoal on prepared board coated with marble dust

Dimensions10 × 12 in. (25.4 × 30.5 cm)

ClassificationsLandscapes & Still Life

Credit LineGift of W. Gilbert and Janet Manson, 1992

Object number1993.500

DescriptionView of a two story stone house with a hipped roof, three chimneys, and seven windows on the elevation facing the vantage point. The shutters on one of the first floor windows are closed. There is a small columned porch on the right hand entrance, and a large columned porch to the left that faces a river. Two buildings are seen in the middle distance on the river bank. Mountains form the far distance on both sides of the river, which is filled with watercraft, including a steamboat. Trees grow along the left and right edges of the grassy foreground, and a male figure wearing a top hat appears in the extreme right margin.
Curatorial RemarksMarble dust painting was a popular medium in the mid-nineteenth century, particularly among school girls. Charcoal or pastel was applied to a thin piece of cardboard that had been prepared with a coating of marble dust. The technique is often, and inaccurately, referred to as “sandpaper painting.” The attribution to Sarah Hendrickson Van Schoick Reid is based on a second pastel picture of Washington's Headquarters at Tappan, NY, that is signed on the reverse. The two works, identical in size and materials, were donated to the Association by the artist's great-granddaughter, along with a third work depicting Rutgers College by the artist's sister, Mary Ann Van Schoick, that is also signed on the reverse. A third picture attributed to Sarah Reid of the Morford and Spinning Store in Red Bank, Monmouth County, was given to the Association in 1933 by her grandson, Thomas Irving Brown, with its history intact. Brown was the uncle of Janet Brown Manson, donor of this work.NotesThis view of Washington's Headquarters at Newburgh, NY, looking south down the Hudson River, was copied from a steel engraving of the scene by William H. Bartlett after "an original sketch taken on the spot by J. W. Hill." It appeared on the title page of Bartlett's History of the United States of America that was first published in 1856. Although a generally faithful copy of the engraving, the artist has taken a few liberties by eliminating three people in the foreground, and adding a male figure on the extreme right edge plus more watercraft and a steamboat on the river. Sarah Hendrickson Van Schoick (1835 - 1886) was the daughter of William Van Schoick and Eliza Hendrickson of Middletown, Monmouth County. In 1856, she married R. Van Dyke Reid (1833 - 1915) of Red Bank. Sarah Reid was the great-grandmother of the donor.

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