Burning of Old South Church, Bath, Maine

The work is executed in oil paint on a canvas support, a medium typical of mid‑nineteenth‑century American painting.

The work is executed in oil paint on a canvas support, a medium typical of mid‑nineteenth‑century American painting. The artist’s handling of the oil medium is not detailed in the sources, and no condition report is provided. Formal elements center on a nocturnal scene: a church with a bell tower engulfed in flames, illuminated by a bright moon, while the United States flag appears amid the blaze.

This combination of light and dark, architectural form, and symbolic flag creates a dramatic, narrative composition characteristic of genre‑oriented landscape painting of the period.

Burning of Old South Church, Bath, Maine was painted in 1854 by American artist John Hilling in oil on canvas; the sources do not record a specific commission for the work. After its creation the painting remained in Maine until 1948, when it was acquired by collectors Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch. The Garbisches donated the canvas to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., in 1958, where it has remained in the museum’s collection ever since.

The painting Burning of Old South Church, Bath, Maine, is held in the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Its acquisition history records that the work was purchased in 1948 by collectors Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch. The Garbischs subsequently gifted the oil-on-canvas painting to the National Gallery of Art in 1958, where it remains part of the institutional holdings. Specific accession or inventory numbers are not provided in the available records, though the work is cataloged under the artist John Hilling and dated to 1854. The sources do not contain information regarding specific exhibitions in which the work has appeared.

The painting entered the National Gallery of Art in 1958 through the bequest of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch, a donation recorded in the provenance of the work. Its subsequent display and cataloguing in the museum’s collection, together with its entry in the public Wikidata database, have ensured ongoing scholarly attention to the piece as a representative example of mid‑19th‑century American maritime symbolism and its connections to contemporary political themes such as immigration policy. These institutional recognitions have helped sustain the artwork’s reputation within art‑historical discourse.

This oil on canvas painting, titled Burning of Old South Church, Bath, Maine, captures a dramatic nocturnal event. The artwork depicts a church engulfed in flames, with intense fire erupting from its windows. The artist chose to render a scene of destruction, highlighting the powerful and destructive force of the blaze against the darkness of night.

The depiction of significant architectural fires was a recurring theme in art, often serving as a record of local history or a dramatic spectacle. For further insight into similar artistic representations of such events, one might consider the works of John Hilling. His approach to capturing scenes of destruction could offer a comparative perspective on the artistic treatment of urban catastrophes.