We have a new site for our special collections! For the most complete and up-to-date catalog of our materials, please visit https://archives.forbeslibrary.org/.
The Hampshire Room for Special Collections contains thousands of images documenting local history, including images of farms, factories, shops, schools, and local residents both well known and anonymous. The Northampton image collection comprises prints, glass and film negatives, lantern slides, etchings and stereographs. Other collections include the Elbridge Kingsley, Robert Emrick and Walter Corbin Collections, and the Daily Hampshire Gazette negatives from 1954-2004.
These Images From the Archives allow you to search a portion of the library's special collections which have been digitized. If you have any questions about this collection, please contact us.
Featured Item
Classical landscape (Orpheus and Eurydice)
An oil painting illustrating the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. A
river and several classically dressed figures are in foreground
with mountains in distance. Oil on linen / masonite, unsigned and
undated. Restored 2016.
Misses Julia and Rose Watson, sisters of Arthur Watson, a founding Forbes Library trustee and long-time president of its board, presented the painting to the Library in 1926. The Watson family thought it the work of eminent 17th century French painter Nicolas Poussin, who favored the Orpheus and Eurydice theme, or perhaps of a close Poussin relative. But a letter from the Director of the Louvre to Forbes Librarian Joseph L. Harrison in July, 1926, clearly refuted such a notion, ("c'est certainement pas de Poussin"), as well as any possible attribution to Gaspard Dughet, Poussin's nephew.
Later art historians believed the painting to be the work of George Loring Brown, a prominent 19th century landscape painter. A more recent appraisal found that it is not Brown either, but definitely of the Franco/Italian School, 18th century.
Reminiscent of Claude Lorraine's 17th century idyllic painting (e.g. "A Pastoral," c. 1650, Yale University Art Gallery), the work combined a theme from antiquity in an almost-recognizable mileu. Recent admirers refer to the large painting as "Orpheus and Eurydice at the Oxbow," placing the classically-garbed figures in a Connecticut River setting. The painting initially was renovated in 1941.
Misses Julia and Rose Watson, sisters of Arthur Watson, a founding Forbes Library trustee and long-time president of its board, presented the painting to the Library in 1926. The Watson family thought it the work of eminent 17th century French painter Nicolas Poussin, who favored the Orpheus and Eurydice theme, or perhaps of a close Poussin relative. But a letter from the Director of the Louvre to Forbes Librarian Joseph L. Harrison in July, 1926, clearly refuted such a notion, ("c'est certainement pas de Poussin"), as well as any possible attribution to Gaspard Dughet, Poussin's nephew.
Later art historians believed the painting to be the work of George Loring Brown, a prominent 19th century landscape painter. A more recent appraisal found that it is not Brown either, but definitely of the Franco/Italian School, 18th century.
Reminiscent of Claude Lorraine's 17th century idyllic painting (e.g. "A Pastoral," c. 1650, Yale University Art Gallery), the work combined a theme from antiquity in an almost-recognizable mileu. Recent admirers refer to the large painting as "Orpheus and Eurydice at the Oxbow," placing the classically-garbed figures in a Connecticut River setting. The painting initially was renovated in 1941.
Featured Collection
Fine Arts
The Forbes Library holds a substantial collection of paintings,
engravings, photographs, and other works by local, regional and
nationally-known artists of the 18th to the 21st centuries.
Featured Exhibit
125th Anniversary exhibits
Selections from the Forbes Library Archives
In celebration of Forbes Library’s 125th anniversary year (2019), a variety of images and objects from the Library’s local history collections were featured in the Hosmer Gallery alongside the work of contemporary local artists.
These displays will be preserved as online exhibits.
January: Forbes and Calvin Coolidge
February: People at Work
March: Women of Forbes Library
April: The Gregory Wilson Postcard Collection
June: H.E Robbins handcolored wildflower prints
July: Everyday life in 1894 Northampton
August: Posters
September: Children and Education