and Weir painted a portrait of Quartley, The Marine, showing him wearing the big straw hat he had acquired on the summer trip to Long Island in 1878.
The Tilers celebrated the Fourth of July in Schuylerville, where the mayor turned out to pay them the honor of a visit, as did local residents who delighted in trying on various costumes including a mandarin’ s crape robe, Mongolian pagoda hats, and Frans Hals ruffs. In honor of the holiday, the Tilers visited local sights dating back to Colonial times, being transported about in carriages provided by the town fathers,“ each of which had thoughtfully been furnished with … an elderly and communicative native” who supplied more than adequate details. 67 The artists then continued along the Northern Canal where they were greeted with gifts of flowers and fruits and, in turn, invited the locals aboard their floating museum and curiosity shop. They then proceeded to Whitehall, where a little cutter was placed at their disposal to sail on Lake Champlain, touching upon the shore of Vermont before returning for the trip home on July 9. At Whitehall they met the daughter of Parson William Miller( 1782 – 1849), a minister who had mistakenly declared the end of the world and the coming of Christ would occur in 1843.“ The ancient dame moved with difficulty down the padded stairs …. Then, to the astonishment of everyone … she noticed the cello... And soon she was actually tuning and managing the instrument, playing and singing‘ Come to the sunset tree’ and other lyrics of a long-gone time”( fig. 13). 68 Along the way, they had the opportunity of actually visiting a tileworks, where“… as tilers should [ they ] made themselves at home. The kiln, the mill that ground the clay, the heaps of tubes like crimson macaroni, the boy that minded the fire, all were food for artistic reflection.” 69 Gifford documented the visit in a sketch, The Tile Bakery
Figure 13. Charles Stanley Reinhart( American, 1844 – 1896), Come to the Sunset Tree, 1880, pen and ink on paper, 7 1/2 x 3 3/4 in., Heckscher Museum of Art, gift of the Baker / Pisano Collection, 2001.9.207
( location unknown). 70
The return trip down the Hudson was described as“ pure delight.” 71 Little detail is provided except that the same crew of the boats in their tow up the river accompanied them on their voyage home; all of them brought their friends to see the“ wonders of the sailing studio.” 72 After twenty days of cruising their journey came to an end:“ The era of uneasiness, of bag
Decorative Age or Decorative Craze? 19