Unfortunately, Woodward excluded this painting from his Painting Diary. However, we know that it was much loved by the artist. For one thing,
he also made and exhibited at the 1929 Pynchon Gallery a chalk drawing named From the Pasture Top which is very likely the same
scene in pastel. The Pynchon show was Woodward's only known exclusively "pastel" exhibition. The other thing is that the provenance of this
painting shows Woodward gave this painting as a wedding gift to people very near and dear to him...
To the left is a photograph found in
the artist's scrapbooks of the showroom at the Myles Standish Hotel Gallery in 1929. The painting holds a place of honor next to the celebrated painting,
The South Window
"'Top of the Pasture' with a pair of luxuriantly-leaved maples bowing slightly in the breeze, silhouetted against a glorious blue sky with fluffy clouds above the distant deeper blue of rolling hills, reminds us of the story of the man who left his New Hampshire hilltop with his view of Kearsarge, Monadnock and other mountains to seek his fortune in a mid-western city, but who came back shortly with the one laconic plaint- --'he could not see off'."
This painting was found in an attic. It is not know how long it was there or why it was stored there. We suspect that new circumstances forced it to be stored in the attic, perhaps because of its shear size. Not many 40" x 50" paintings fit on the walls of regular modern homes.
There is some slight damage to the canvas due to how it was stored over how many years. But for being in an attic, with their extreme
swings in temperature, the painting itself is in remarkable shape.
The painting is signed (see signature to the right) and exhibited
four times between 1929 and 1931. It was at this time in Woodward's career that he made a number of epic 40 x 50 paintings. Starting with the
1930 Boston Tercentennial Gold Medal winning, New England Drama; There is also...
Maple Sugaring, New England Origins,
Out of the New England Soil, Old Boston,
and Enduring New England.
These large paintings would be the last.
Woodward would exclusively turn to the 36" x 42" size canvas from 1934 on.