Meneghelli's skilled precision can be found in his charming outdoor scenes of the rapidly expanding city, as seen in Old South Meeting House, Washington Street, Boston, Massachusetts. Built in 1729 and now celebrated as the second oldest church in Boston (after Old North in the North End), the Old South Meeting House served many purposes over its history: a place of worship, a town hall, and site of vociferous debate over the tea tax and subsequent planning of the Boston Tea Party in December 1773.

The historic building now hosts a permanent exhibition to the city’s storied past; it survived revolution, conflagration (in the form of the Great Boston Fire of 1872), and near ruination, and now endures as a beacon of the freedom of expression for which the American colonists fought so dearly.

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Born in 1853 in Northern Italy, Enrico Meneghelli immigrated to America where he was active in both New York and Boston. He exhibited his work at the Boston Art Club from 1879 until 1889, as well as at the annual exhibitions of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1882, 1883 and 1885. His paintings were widely collected during his lifetime and are now featured in several important collections, including the Boston Athenaeum and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The latter owns six of his works, with five depicting interior views of the museum’s galleries and collections from its original Copley Square location, rendered with extraordinary detail.

Provenance:

Private collection, New Hampshire

To private dealer, Portsmouth, New Hampshire

With Vose Galleries, Boston, inventory no. 33392, September 2000

To private collection, Ardmore, Pennsylvania, December 2003 to present

Labels:

1. Previous Vose Galleries label, inventory no. 33392
2. Old Frost & Adams label on top stretcher

Literature:

Weinberg, H. Barbara, Childe Hassam, American Impressionist (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2004), illus. p. 298, in Erica Hirshler’s essay, “Hassam and American Architecture”

Exhibitions:

Our Best to You, Vose Galleries, Boston, Massachusetts, January 15 – March 15, 2002 (illus. in exhibition catalogue, p. 25)