Winslow Homer (1836 -1910)
Reading on a Stone Porch, 1872
Oil on panel, 6 x 8.5 in
Private Collection

A young woman sits elegantly in a folding chair absorbed in her book.  The shaded porch throws into sharp relief a verdant landscape and fair sky beyond the open rear door of the house.

The porch is a single large slab of  bluestone like that quarried in West Hurley, NY.  The house is built from limestone like that quarried along Rt. 209 in Marbletown.  These veins of easily split stone were used to build many of Hurley's stone houses.  This small painting, about half letter size, was sold by Sotheby's in 2010 to a private collector for $1.3 million.

Winslow Homer (1836 -1910)
The Dutch Door, undated
Oil on canvas mounted to board. 11.7 x 11.2 in
Private collection

In this little-known painting by Homer, he repeats the motif of an open door framing a distant landscape, a sort of painting within a painting, just as he did in Reading on a Stone Porch.  Both of these gems are in private collections so have rarely been seen by the public.  Anyone familiar with the surviving Dutch colonial homes in Hurley will instantly recognize the architectural details in these paintings.  This modest-sized painting was sold in 2018 by Rago Auctions in New Jersey for $137,000.