NGA | John Wilmerding Collection

Felix Octavius Carr Darley (1822-1888), Rocks near the Landing at Bald Porcupine Island, Bar Harbor, 1872, pencil and wash on paper, John Wilmerding Collection

While his name may not be familiar today, Felix Octavius Carr Darley was a premier nineteenth-century American illustrator. He is thought to have produced some four thousand drawings, the majority of which were used as the basis for engraved magazine and book illustrations and banknote designs. Rocks near the Landing at Bald Porcupine Island, Bar Harbor, with its high degree of finish, is not a simple preparatory sketch but a drawing that was intended for exhibition and sale.