Hingham Meetinghouse

Details

Descriptive Terms

oil painting (technique)
landscapes (representations)
oil painting (technique)
Picture
Townscape
Townscape

Label

"Cherished Possessions": Some 202 meetinghouses are known to have been built in seventeenth-century New England. Hingham's is the only one still standing. Because of its massive timber roof trusses, which resemble the frame of a ship, it bears the nickname of “Old Ship Meetinghouse” or “Old Ship Church.” In Puritan New England, the meetinghouse was the community center, used for both Sabbath day worship and town meetings. Attendance at the lengthy Sunday services was required by law.
This bucolic scene of the Hingham Meetinghouse was painted by Winckworth Allan Gay, whose great-grandfather had been minister there for nearly seventy years.

Inscription

"W. Allan Gay Pinxt 1845" (Signed in red paint)

Associated Building

Subject Old Ship Meeting House (Hingham, Mass.),

Maker

Gay, Winckworth Allan (American painter, 1821-1910) (Artist)

Location of Origin

MA

Dimensions

10 x 9 3/4 (HxW) (inches)

Credit Line

Bequest of Susan Norton

Accession Number

1990.149

Places

Massachusetts (United States)
Hingham (Plymouth County, Massachusetts)