Albert pinkham ryder moonlight marine

Raised in the whaling port of New Bedford, Massachusetts, Ryder continued to seek contact with the ocean after he moved to New York in 1870.

A sea captain recalled his friend Ryder’s visits to his ship when it was in port: “On moonlight nights he would go on to the bridge and watch the numerous craft passing up and down the Hudson, getting ‘moonlight effects.’ I have known him to walk down to the Battery at midnight, and just sit there studying the effect of clouds passing over the moon.” Ryder’s habit of applying pigment in many thick layers has caused changes in the contours of certain forms—clouds, sails, and the boat’s hull—since this painting was completed.