Name/Title
A Scene Near WoodstockEntry/Object ID
1957.1.345Description
Oil painting on board showing a green field. There are trees on the right, and hills and mountains in the background. There is a sketch of a woman on the back of the board.Type of Painting
PanelArtwork Details
Medium
OilSubject Place
Town
WoodstockCounty
Windsor CountyState/Province
VermontCountry
United States of AmericaContinent
North AmericaContext
JOHN NELSON MARBLE (1855-1918), sketch artist and painter, was a Woodstock native, one of 12 children of Liberty Bates Marble and Elizabeth Woodward Marble. He spent his youth in and about Woodstock, and even at a young age showed a great aptitude for painting. At age 18, he was enrolled at the Normal Art School in Boston, and from there was one of the first students to attend the Art Students’ League in New York, in 1875, where he also kept a studio for a number of years. He later studied at the Academie Julian in Paris and spent the summer of 1900 in Florence, Italy, where he visited the studio of famous Woodstock sculptor Hiram Powers.
He spent most of his adult life in Santa Barbara, California, for his health, and enjoyed exploring the surrounding foothills on horseback, delighting in the splendid opportunities for outdoor life. It was while living in California that he became known as a colorist and produced most of his landscapes. But he is best known for his prolific facial renderings which reveal a remarkable and engaging study of character.
Mr. Marble returned to the East Coast in 1916 to complete a commission to paint perhaps his most famous work, a life-size portrait of Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy, founder of Christian Science, which today hangs in the historic Statehouse in Concord, New Hampshire. In Woodstock, he painted portraits of many prominent locals: Frederick Billings, Frederick Billings, Jr., Mrs. Frederick Billings, Rev. Moses Kidder, and A. B. Wilder, among many others. He cordially welcomed visitors to his studio here, where there was much interest in both his charm and his canvases, and he was known for his “gentle, dignified presence.” He died in 1918 as a result of pneumonia, at the Marble family homestead in Woodstock (the current site of Cabot Funeral Home), having never married.
-- From Woodstock History CenterAcquisition
Accession
1957.1Source or Donor
Rugg, Harold Goddard (1883-1957)Acquisition Method
BequestMade/Created
Artist
Marble, John Nelson (1855-1918)Date made
1916 - 1918Lexicon
Nomenclature 4.0
Nomenclature Primary Object Term
PaintingNomenclature Class
ArtNomenclature Category
Category 08: Communication Objects