The Chapel of the Virgin at Subiaco
by Samuel F. B. Morse
1830
Best known today for inventions like
the telegraph, Morse early had aspirations of becoming a painter and spent five
years (1811-15) in London studying art. Despite unsuccessful efforts to encourage
an appreciation of history painting among patrons in New York, Morse rose to prominence
as an artist in the 1820s and 1830s. On a second trip to Europe in April 1830,
Morse encountered in Rome a fellow American, Stephen Salisbury II of Worcester,
who commissioned a painting.
This view of a wayside chapel in the Sabine Mountains
on the road to Subiaco, sketched during an excursion, was painted in Morse's Rome
studio. The Museum now owns not only the finished work but also two preparatory
oil sketches- one depicting the shrine and surrounding landscape, another of the
shepherds and flock. Comparison of the final composition and the landscape study
shows that Morse transformed the naturalistic palette and even quality of noonday
light in the study to create a more dramatic mood: the finished painting is distinctive
for its brilliant, artificial palette and strong, late-afternoon light.
