In the spring of 1800, Ezekiel Hersey Derby (1772-1852) purchased this farm, including 110 acres of land in Salem, Massachusetts, not far from the center of town.  He quickly set about making improvements to the property, hiring Salem architect Samuel McIntire to update the buildings, and implementing progressive methods of farming.  Among Derby’s recent improvements visible in the painting are McIntire’s carved swag, just visible on the doorway of the barn, and the lightning rod on the side of the house.  Fifty years later, at age seventy-eight, Derby was described as “still active, personally superintending his extensive farm operations, and earnestly awake to every practical improvement.” 

This painting depicts lush agricultural fields.  Painted in the summer with the corn just coming on, the foreground shows a well-managed farm with healthy crops and rich earth; obscured behind a band of trees is the family’s house.  When Derby commissioned the painting, apparently it was the land he wanted depicted; the house was of secondary importance.  (The Derbys had a more formal house in the center of town, less than two miles from this one.)  The image was painted by Michele Felice Corné, a Neopolitan immigrant and successful painter. 

Corné’s painting centers on the road running past the farm.  This was the main road down the long neck from Salem to Marblehead.  Neat stone walls separating Derby’s fields line both sides of the road.  Stone walls are a distinctive feature of the New England agricultural landscape, acting both to create divisions between fields and providing a solution to a particularly regional complaint.  Boulders, rocks, and stones appear in New England like an ineradicable annual crop, the shallow soil and freeze-thaw cycle bringing them tot he surface year after year.  Wealthy farmers like Derby had a sufficient number of farmhands to clear the stones and maintain the orderly walls depicted here. The white painted fence to the right of the road denoted the house lot.

In front of the corn field to the right of the road is a field planted with a low-growing crop-perhaps potatoes, a recently planted grain, or the carrots or beets which Derby recorded growing to supplement the feed for his cattle.  This field may also have been used for clover.  Across the road, workers appear to be spreading manure, the rich brown color suggesting they were readying the field for planting.  Most likely they would plant a cover crop like winter rye that would be turned over in the spring to add nutrients to the soil.  The low trees behind the fallow field might be fruit trees; their placement not far from the house would be a convenient location for an orchard.  Behind the trees, a hilly area, more conducive to ornamental landscaping than farming, is topped by a garden house where members of the Derby family could entertain, catching the hilltop breezes on warm summer evenings. 

Ezekiel Hersey Derby was the third son of Elias Hasket Derby, an enormously wealthy resident of Salem who made his fortune in the China Trade.  Ezekiel inherited a large estate from his father as well as his father’s agricultural interests.  Both father and son served as trustees of the Massachusetts Society for Promoting Agriculture.

Carlisle, Nancy.  Cherished Possessions, A New England Legacy.  Boston: Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities (SPNEA), 2003.