Name/Title
Camel's Hump From A Point Of View In Berlin, VT.Entry/Object ID
VHS-A-262Description
Landscape. 2 trees upper left center, view from rise into valley. lower left, rock surrounded by vegetation, path leading from lower right into middleground. 2 children at right. Forested hillside to Camel's Hump in background. Small scene lower left. Man and woman in sleigh being pulled by white horse.Artwork Details
Medium
Paper, InkSubject
Camel's HumpSubject Place
Town
BerlinCounty
Washington CountyState/Province
VermontCountry
United States of AmericaContinent
North AmericaContext
James Franklin Gilman was born in 1850 in Woburn, Massachusetts to John and Elizabeth Gilman. His father was a cordwainer and his mother a seamstress. Early census records indicate his mother was born in Vermont. Little is known of his early life or education.
By the late 1860s he evidently made his living as an itinerant artist, often depicting the farm landscape and/or portraits of those providing him with room and board. Works remain of farms and people in Chelmsford, Groton, and Billerica, MA.
In 1872 he arrived in Barre, Vermont, a tall man with red hair and a distinctive red beard. He spent over twenty years in the general vicinity of Barre, Montpelier, Plainfield, and Calais. Most of the time was spent boarding with various farm families, though he did open a studio and school in Montpelier for a time.
At some point in the late 1880s he joined the Church of Christian Scientists and became acquainted with church founder Mary Baker Eddy. From 1889 to 1891 he boarded at the Perrin farm in Berlin, the location of this image. He supposedly fell in love with Mary Perrin, a daughter in the household. The small vignette in the lower left depicts James and Mary in a sleigh. A short love poem is in the composition above. Her father declined to let the couple marry due to Gilman's occupation as an itinerant painter and his newfound religion.
He ultimately sold all of his works and the contents of his studio, some say in reaction to this lost love, and moved back to Massachusetts in 1891. He famously illustrated a poem entitled "Christ and Christmas" by Eddy.
The last decade of his life was spent in Athol, MA were he lived on the edge of poverty, passing away in 1929. Mary Perrin remained on the family farm, never married and died at the age of 72 in 1932.Acquisition
Source (if not Accessioned)
UnknownMade/Created
Artist
Gilman, James Franklin (1850-1929)Date made
1889Lexicon
Nomenclature 4.0
Nomenclature Primary Object Term
PrintNomenclature Sub-Class
Graphic DocumentsNomenclature Class
Documentary ObjectsNomenclature Category
Category 08: Communication ObjectsRelationships
Related Publications
Publication
James Franklin Gilman