Lot 114: Mary Blood Mellen (American, b. 1817) Three Master in Rough Seas Unsigned. Oil on canvas,

13 1/4 x 20 in. (33.5 x 51 cm), framed. Condition: Lined, scattered retouch. Publications: Michael Moses, "Mary Blood Mellen and Fitz Hugh Lane with a Check List of Paintings..." in The Magazine Antiques (volume CXL, number 5), November 1991, page 837. N.B. Mary Blood was born in Sterling, Massachusetts, in 1817. Following her marriage to Rev. Charles Mellen in 1840, the couple moved to Gloucester. By the end of that decade, Mellen found herself working alongside famed artist Fitz Hugh Lane, as his student and assistant. In recent years, scholars have discovered that the relationship between Lane and Mellen, which has often been presented as one of master artist and student, was really more than that. Although Mellen~dq~s style is clearly a derivative of Lane~dq~s, she actually completed several copies of his work, it is now believed that the Lane and Mellen relationship was really much more of a collaboration than was originally thought. In fact, scholars have noted that there are several canvases that without strong provenance to suggest that they were by Mellen, could have been easily ascribed to Lane himself.