contact: Jeff Matthews

I fully expect this to be a hoax but am intrigued by the possibility that it might not be. Just think: there might be a connection between the painting displayed on this page, “Vesuvius Erupting at Night,” and the Algonquin Native American on the seal of the US State of Massachusetts. (I don’t mean that there is an Algonquin gentleman straddling the one carnivorous, aquatic mammal of the family Phocidae owned by the great state of Massachusetts; I mean that the gentleman is depicted on the emblematic design that represents that state. There. Just so you don’t think this is too ridiculous.) How could this be? I haven’t the slightest idea.

First, the painting is by the English painter, William Marlow (1740-1813). He was a popular and respected landscape artist who specialized in subjects taken from the so-called Grand Tour, among which were a number of paintings of Italy, particularly scenery and ruins that would appeal to the Grand Tourists of his day. Vesuvius erupting certainly fits in that category. The painting is from 1768; there were two verifiably large eruptions of Vesuvius in the 1700s—1737 and 1794, so there may be some poetic license in the fireworks, but that’s fine. That’s what artists do; people are more likely to buy a painting of a volcano erupting than not erupting. Marlow retired in the 1780s, but financial difficulties prompted him to publish Etched Views in Italy in 1795, a collection of six etchings he made from his own earlier water-colors and oils. His work includes a number of scenes in Naples besides the one of Vesuvius shown here.

So far, so good. Now, the biography of Marlow in the authoritative Grove Art Online also contains this: “He is also thought to have designed the seals for the original 13 United States of America.” That’s all it says. No source, no citation.  We warn college students against “they say” statements like that without backing them up. That is, if I read that Mozart wrote Dixie, I want some proof. On the surface, the Grove sentence means that —besides the Algonguin gentleman mentioned— there were 12 other seals that Marlow purportedly had something to do with. The possibilities are, if not endless, at least many: ships, plows, sheaves of wheat, olive branches and eagles —and that's just Pennsylvania. You can do the rest, yourselves, but there are published accounts of how most of these emblems were designed or chosen, and none of them mention the English painter. So, doesn’t this sound like one of those bits of vandalism that college-kids with too much time sneak into Wikipedia articles? Except that this is Grove. The Grove, as they say. I have written a pompous letter to the editors and am awaiting a reply. I’ll let you know. I really want it to be true.

[update: some weeks later]

I am vindicated but disappointed. A very nice lady, Jane, an editor at Grove agreed with me and said they would delete that passage in time for the next on-line edition of the Grove Art Online. Sigh. Too bad. What a story.