Sketches of Trees
April 27, 1898
Medium
Drawing
Classification
Drawing
Department
Smithsonian Collection
Museum
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Credit
Gift of Mrs. Samuel Colman
Accession Number
1939-85-24
About this artwork
Research in Progress
Art Historical Context
Samuel Colman’s “Sketches of Trees,” dated April 27, 1898, offers a quiet window into the working practice of an accomplished American artist late in his career. Created when Colman was sixty-six, the drawing captures the kind of careful, on-site observation that sustained many nineteenth-century landscapists. As a finished sheet rather than a preparatory study, it reveals how the artist continued to engage directly with the natural world even after decades of painting and travel. The medium itself—pencil or graphite on paper—highlights the intimate, immediate nature of drawing. Unlike oil pa...