Nelson Augustus Moore (1824-1902)
Apple Orchard, 1878
Oil on canvas, 18 x 28”
Signed and dated lower left

This Kensington, Connecticut, native referred to himself professionally as N. A. Moore. He wanted to work mostly in his native state, but he needed to move about in order to make a living. He had given up a flourishing daguerrotype business in Hartford in order to paint full-time. For more than 20 years he summered at Lake George, New York, where tourists ordered large versions, to be delivered later, of the small oil sketches he painted and showed them there. If he had enough orders to keep busy all winter, he went home to Kensington. If not, he set up winter studios elsewhere, often in Hartford but sometimes in New York and other large cities. Hartford claimed him as a local artist whenever he was there. He painted many pastoral views of the Connecticut landscape.