Nahant Coast

After studying abroad in the late 1850s, William Stanley Haseltine returned to the United States to concentrate his efforts on painting the beauty of the American landscape. Traveling from Maine's Mount Desert Island to Rhode Island's Point Judith, Haseltine executed a series of vivid coastal landscapes that celebrate the bold rock formations of those particular locales. The artist was particularly fascinated by Nahant, Massachusetts, fifteen miles north of Boston. The rocks at Nahant were formed by volcanic and glacial activity, which was the subject of scientific study at the time by popular professor Louis Agassiz of Harvard, where Haseltine had studied. In his paintings of the area, Haseltine thus not only captures a popular resort of the period, but also employs a high degree of detail in depicting the local geology.