View of New London

This watercolor is titled View of New London from the Home of James Stewart, British Consul at New London, dedicated to Mrs. Stewart by a poor shipwrecked Swiss sailor, 1815. It appears to show Elizabeth Coles Stewart and two of her sons on the formal lawn, with part of New London’s commercial waterfront in the distance. The Stewarts’ home had been built at the head of Winthrop Cove, next to the New London Mill, by John S. Winthrop in 1754 and was purchased by Elizabeth Stewart’s father in 1794. A bit of old English formality in New London, the house served as the British vice consulate from 1811 to 1832—except when the Stewarts were the center of controversy during the war. The house was razed for the Winthrop School in 1892 and is now a vacant lot next to the Old Town Mill. (Lyman Allyn Art Museum, 1944.69)