McMariner's Well. Cape Elizabeth, Portland, Me.

 

James David Smillie

  1833 - 1909 (biography)

1880  

watercolor 

6 3/4 x 10 1/4" image 

signed in pigment: J.D. Smillie in lower right 

 

in pigment in lower right beneath signature: Oct. 22d. 1880; and tltled in pigment in lower left corner of image 

 

ivory textured watercolor paper 

 

 

BC222 

$8,000.00 

Originally a part of Portland, Maine (named Falmouth at the time), the citizens petitioned for and obtained their own government in 1765, thus including all the area lying south of Portland Harbor and east of the Spurwink River. Commercial and industrial growth in the north end of the town, nearest the harbor (now South Portland), was in sharp contrast to the continuing rural character of the southern tip of the Cape. In 1895, the two sections agreed to separate, and from that date forward the southern end of the original town became the present town of Cape Elizabeth.

Smillie's watercolor was done in 1880 when it was farmland. This exquisite small landscape records a small rural property with outbuildings, chickens and a well on the MacMariner property.