A Winter View of the Church, Academy &c

Elias Vogler was an accomplished miniaturist who painted the watercolor from which this lithograph was developed.  Unlike Grunewald’s romantic images of the square with deciduous trees in full leaf, Vogler’s image of Salem in winter allows a better understanding of the evergreens planted in the center of the square.  Barely visible through the trees is the church.   A student at the Salem Girls’ Boarding School, Eliza Fannin, wrote in 1836,  “I am now sitting at one of the windows of my room, trying to write…my eyes on the square looking at the beautiful Cedars and Sycamores, waving and bending their bows.”  It’s likely that Elias painted this view of Salem from a window in his father’s house just across the square from the pump near the center of this view.