"Painted prior to 1928. A window picture made in the old studio that burnt in 1933 having the couch arm and the Chinese lantern in it. Published in color on the cover of "Country Life in America", February 1928. Bought from one of my Boston exhibitions by Mrs. W. Scott Fitz, but upon her death this canvas passed into the possession of her son, Edward Jackson Holmes, of 296 Beacon St., Boston, grandson of Oliver Wendell Holmes."
First let us state clearly that the image used for this page is not in
fact From My Studio Window but rather a cropped version of My Winter Shelf
we are using create a simulated perspective of the painting we now know to be From My Studio Window but do not have a good picture. [
See illustration below]
Woodward's attributes his diary remarks to the painting named From My Studio Window,
however, we have discovered new information that proves he was mistaken. Woodward mixed up From My Studio Window with the painting
The South Window. He did not start to assemble his "Painting Diary" until the early 1940s and he
did so almost entirely from memory.
While it may seem that his mistake is egregious. We would like to first point out what the two paintings
have in common. Both paintings are from the Hiram Woodward studio corner window but
from different perspective. Both paintings are own by and were loaned to both the 1929 and 1944 Myles Standish Gallery exhibitions by their respective
owners. Both owners were well know collectors and patrons of art and members of Boston society 's elite as well as solid supporters of Woodward's career.
It is really the insurmountable differences of the two paintings that helped us find the mistake.
The South Window is a 36" x 30" upright and From My Studio Window is a square-ish, 25" x 30" landscape painting. From the aspect ratio alone this means that From My Studio Window CANNOT be the painting that appears on the cover of the February issue of Country Living magazine! This has been confirmed mathematically using the full version of the 1929 photograph of the Myles Standish showroom where The South Window hangs next to the 40" x 50" Top of the Pasture.
Having proved from the 1929 photograph of the Myles Standish Gallery showroom that the painting that appeared on
the cover of Country Living is in fact The South Window, we where now left with what painting was in fact, From My Studio
Window? There is ONLY one other window painting we know of hanging in the show and it appears in the showroom picture above.
Now this begins to make much more sense. The South Window is just of the south-facing window in the studio corner and
From My Studio Window is in fact looking out the corner window to the yard.
It does get stranger yet. According to
the exhibit's catalog From My Studio Window was lent to the show by noted art collector John T. Spaulding. Spaulding is the
buyer of record for the painting The Window; A Still Life and Winter Scene, which was given to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston
as part of what is known as the "Spaulding Collection." The issue here is not that Spaulding owns both paintings. It is the fact the two paintings
are extremely similar!
The close up capture from the 1929 showroom photograph (upper right corner above) of the "other"
Window Picture painting reveals that it is simialr size and perpsective (H25" x W30" / landscape) and we can make out several key
features to the painting highlighted with graphics. The first thing that grabbed us was that there does not appear to be a curtain. The
corner post looks straight and square. Next was that only a partial glimpse of the south window's first row of window panes where visible,
suggesting the perspective of Woodward is rotated more right than in the original 1926 painting. From there it is easy to see it is in fact
a different painting.
The mystery here is why? Why does Spaulding have two paintings of the near exact same scene? We can
only say that it is possible the collector liked the scene so much and knew he was giving the 1926 painting to the MFA (or perhaps had already
done so) and wanted a "keepsake" of sorts.
"From My Studio Window is an unforgettable bit of painting. There are about 40 pictures in the exhibition--every one of them distinctive and distinguished."
This mystery was basically unearthed by our recent exploration into the
exhibition records. We are discovery things that have been right under our noses for decades. One such revelation is just how
important the Myles Standish Gallery and Hotel was to Woodward and he to them. Woodward would hold his 1929 exhibition
just a year into the hotel's opening and then exhibit there every year thereafter but two until it closes its doors sometime shortly
after 1944. His last major exhibit.
It was the 1944 exhibition that first caught our eye because the paintings shown
are among Woodward's most beloved and prized paintings. Many of them are from his own personal collection from his home
and then there are painting we know as fact are owned by numerous of his best customers! It would seem to us that this was a
grande finale to what was a long and wonderful relationship between the artist and the hotel.
The 1944 exhibit
prompted us to look at the others and found that nearly half the paintings that exhibit at the 1929 show, also hung at the
1944 show with a number of paintings from the 1931 exhibit also making the 1944 send off... making it all significant.