The Shores of Conanicut

Born in Philadelphia, Sword was raised in Macao (China) before returning to the United States as a young man. After a brief career as an industrial engineer, he enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1861 and earned his living as a portrait artist. He kept up with trends in painting in the nineteenth century and emulated the work of past artists such as Henry Inman (1801 – 1846). He experimented with genre scenes and animal portraits, but his strength was in his landscapes, such as this work.

In addition to the landscape surrounding his native Philadelphia, Sword traveled throughout the northeast including the White Mountains, the Adirondacks, the Hudson Valley, and the New Jersey and Newport, Rhode Island shores.  This painting is a Rhode Island view of Conanicut, the second largest island in Narragansett Bay, just to the west of Newport, which is visible in the distance.