Pictorial Supplement 18

Marine Paintings of John Faunce Leavitt.

Jovan Faunce Leavitt (1905-1974) was many things during his lifetime -- newspaper reporter, yacht broker, for some fifteen years an invaluable member of the staff at Mystic Seaport, Connecticut, and a self-trained artist of great technical competence and accuracy through intimate knowledge of his subject. The watercolors reproduced here form part of the Leavitt collection at the Peabody Museum of Salem; the majority were acquired from him in 1963. Aside from the obvious historical reconstructions, most of the vessels he depicted in this series were ones he knew well either from personal observations along the New England coast or as a result of his youthful service aboard a number of the last working Down Easters. These vessels, and others, he admirably described in his Wake of the Coasters, published in 1970 as Volume II of The American Maritime Library. Italicized portions of the accompanying picture captions are John Leavitt's own penciled comments about the vessels in this series. Arrangement is chronological by date of construction.

Pinnace Virginia, 30 tons, built at Sagadahoc, Maine, in 1607.
'Conception based on the vessel shown on the contemporary map of Fort Popham'