From left: Dave Probert, Chuck Vaughan, Greg Edwards, Perry Palmer, Robin Grant, Lincoln County Historical Association Executive Director Shannon Gilmore, Maine Antiques Dealers Association endowment fund chair Harry Hepburn, and Christopher Stanley stand in front of a landscape painting by Henry Cheever-Pratt in Dresden’s Pownalborough Court House on Wednesday, July 31. The Maine Antiques Dealers Association donated $1,000 to the Lincoln County Historical Association to help cover the cost of the painting’s restoration. (Piper Pavelich photo)
A group of trustees and volunteers gathered at the Pownalborough Court House on Wednesday, July 31 to witness a donation to the Lincoln County Historical Association for the restoration of a painting that holds the history of the area in its image.
Maine Antiques Dealers Association Endowment Fund Chair Harry Hepburn and board member and Bremen resident Christopher Stanley presented a check for $1,000 to Lincoln County Historical Association Executive Director Shannon Gilmore to help cover the remaining balance of the restoration of a 1840s landscape painting made by artist Henry Cheever-Pratt.
“Our president took the proposal to the group … And here we are,” said Hepburn. “We really are a proactive organization when it comes to things like this, and I do a lot of research to make sure this falls within our wheelhouse.”
Cheever-Pratt was a prominent portrait artist from Boston, Mass. who was discovered by Samuel F.B. Morse, a painter and co-developer of the Morse code. He later befriended Thomas Cole, one of the most influential American painters of the 19th century and founder of the Hudson River School, a mid-19th century art movement.
Cheever-Pratt married Sarah Johnson Pratt, the daughter of John Johnson, Jr., in 1831 and frequently visited the court house in Dresden.
Built in 1761, the Pownalborough Court House was owned by Samuel Goodwin and his descendents, including the Johnson family, until 1954, when it was sold to the Lincoln County Historical Association.
Cheever-Pratt’s landscape painting was jovially scrutinized for not including a cow or horse, said Lincoln County Historical Association trustee Perry Palmer, and it became a joke amongst family members that the subject of the painting had run away.
“The way I heard it, when I started docenting here 20 years ago, was that the name of the painting was ‘The Cow Ran Away,’” said Palmer.
The painting has hung in the court house since at least the 1930s, according to a photograph taken for the Historic American Buildings Survey in 1936.
At some point, the painting was folded and stored, said Gilmore and Palmer.
In Palmer’s nearly 20 years working with the Lincoln County Historical Association, she said the painting hung in numerous locations throughout the court house, including the kitchen and the tavern.
Palmer said she was nearly ready to discard the painting, but that it was worth figuring out if it could be salvaged despite the damage it had sustained from being stored.
“And now it’s fixed. It’s cool,” said Palmer.
The recently restored landscape painting hangs in the first floor parlor of the Pownalborough Court House at 23 Court House Road and depicts Cross Road, which extended east from the court house to the Common Road and Dresden Mills.
Seven portraits, one still life painting, and a pencil drawing by Cheever-Pratt are also on display at the court house.
The Pownalborough Court House is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, Sunday, and Thursday.
For more information, call 882-6817, email Gilmore at lchamaine1954@gmail.com, or go to lincolncountyhistory.org.
