No. 469 Frank Henry Shapleigh
Frank H. Shapleigh was born in Boston and studied painting at the Lowell Institute of Drawing. In 1867-1868, he sailed to Europe where he studied in the studio of Emile Lambinet (1815-1877). He visited Dorchester in the 1870s and painted the house portrait of 16 Harley Street.
Shapleigh painted throughout New England, in St. Augustine, Florida, California, and in Europe. For sixteen years, from 1877 to 1893, he was artist-in-residence at the Crawford House in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. He wintered at the Ponce de Leon Hotel, St. Augustine, in 1886-1887, and he became the artist-in-residence at the hotel from 1889 until 1892. Today Shapleigh is best known for his well-executed White Mountain landscapes which include all of the major tourist attractions and personal, intimate landscapes of New Hampshire. Shapleigh painted “Mount Washington” and the other well-known mountains from dozens of different locations. Shapleigh often inscribed the location of his painting on the back of his canvas, providing an invaluable record of the subjects of his works.
The following is from the book Ashmont by Douglas Shand Tucci, p. 80.
… 16 Harley, the Reed-Loring House [is] an enchanting mansard “cottage” built ca. 1875 with a lovely barn on a big double lot all of which is in pristine condition. (Its fencing is also minimally offensive: wooden and “see-through,” it meanders behind the lot lines.) One of the very oldest houses on Ashmont Hill, it has a color scheme more than a century later that is pretty much the same as it had originally. And its sense of a long summer day in the country is just as palpable today as when Frank Henry Shapleigh, the first of several Boston painters attracted to Ashmont Hill, sojourned for a while in the 1870s with the first owners of 16 Harley. Back home from his student day in Paris, so drawn was Shapleigh to the local scene that he produced the pleasing painting of the Reed-Loring House (reproduced here) recently offered for auction through the Skinner Galleries in Boston and someday, one hopes, to become part of the collection of the Dorchester Historical Society. [note: The Dorchester Historical Society has since acquired the painting.]
No. 8042 Painting of 16 Harley Street by Shapleigh