William Morris Hunt: The Great Boston Fire

"Portrait of Agnes Elizabeth Claflin"
by William Morris Hunt

"In November, 1872, the great Boston fire destroyed 776 buildings and countless works of art. As the fire swept through Summer Street it embraced William Morris Hunt's studio. All of his treasures were consumed. The loss to him was incalculable. 

One large closet, well filled with choice souvenirs of European art. 'Nest eggs for the children,' he called these pictures. Among the Millet pictures were five or six that still remained in their old French frames. The loss of Hunt's own work was very great. One wall of the studio was lined with cartoons of life-size, full-length portraits, which in their dusky corner seemed like studies made by Velasquez, Raphael, or Titian. Several finished portraits stood on different easels, ready to be sent to their owners.

One lady, more fortunate than others, had called at the studio the day before, and asked leave to carry home the scarcely finished portrait of her husband. Her zeal won the day, and the portrait thus escaped the flames. Three or four which were burned had to be again painted by the artist, a severe loss of time and money.

One exquisite portrait, ordered by Mrs. Claflin, had been a work of untiring devotion. This lady had lost her young daughter, and possessed but a single tin-type of the head. She had come to Hunt with such earnestness and simplicity, begging him to try to paint it, that, touched by her mother's love, and her confidence in his work, he resolved to succeed at any cost to himself.

He spared not himself in the least. He depicted the young girl dressed in white muslin, and standing thoughtfully in an out-door atmosphere, with a suggestion of white birches in the background. To get the idea needed he posed one of his own daughters on the driveway at his Milton home, and took rapid mental notes of the way the child looked against the sky, distance, and middleground. That idea was kept throughout the picture of Miss Claflin.

For the gown and for general effect, her young cousin posed in the studio; and after weeks of careful, loving work, the picture was completed, only to be destroyed in the Summer Street fire. It is said to have been thrown from a window of the studio, and trampled under foot in the excited crowd.

Fortunately, Hunt had begun the picture in his usual way, by making, on a white canvas, a charcoal drawing of the subject as he wished it to look in the painting. The sketch had been sent to Mrs. Claflin for a few days, and was thus saved from the flames.

So great was her sympathy for the artist in his loss that she said, 'Mr. Hunt, if you wish me to be satisfied with the charcoal sketch, I will not ask you to paint another picture.' Hunt replied, 'I do not wish you to be satisfied with the charcoal. I will repeat my work as soon as possible.

When the picture was completed, the family pronounced it to be quite as satisfactory as the first. When Hunt parted with it, tears came into his eyes, and he said, 'It is too much to believe. I did not expect them to be satisfied. It is hard to part with that picture. I have given a good deal of heart-work to it.' "

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Art-Life of William Morris Hunt" by Helen Mary Knowlton.)