21 1/2 x 14 1/2 in. (sight), 26 1/2 x 20 1/2 in. (framed). Watercolor on paper. The following information, submitted by Stephen W. Holbrook, was excerpted from an article titled "The Inside Story of Ruth Safford's Art", written in the "Down East" magazine of Maine, dated July 1971, by Isabel Durrier. Ruth Perkins Safford of Blue Hill, Maine and Washington, D.C. is in the opinion of many museum directors the only artist in America who specializes in portraits of interiors of buildings. Less known among Mrs. Safford's many distinctions has been her almost lifelong determination to reproduce down east beauty spots in paintings that sometimes are the only existing record of a vanished feature on the changing face of Maine. She has produced perhaps the most complete 20th century architectural history of Maine, ranging from mansions to fish-houses, both inside and out.Her beautiful watercolor of the staircase in the Black House at Ellsworth is in the permanent collection of the Farnsworth Museum at Rockland, Maine and Ethelbert Nevin's summer home at Blue Hill.Born and bred in Boston, Ruth Appleton Perkins' ancestry includes a Harvard president (Appleton) and founders of the Perkins Institute for the Blind at Watertown. She graduated from the Massachusetts College of Art and married Captain Laurance Frye Safford (USN RET), who hailed from Newburyport. In her early days she made paintings of the sea and of ships. Mrs. Safford got a four-year traveling exhibition grant under the sponsorship of the Mellon Foundation to display her paintings of the interiors of famous homes in Virginia. She got this support from the foundation after Andrew Mellon saw her paintings and said "Whoever painted this should do more like it." She uses watercolors and gouache for her paintings. Critics usually call attention to the quality of warmth in the rooms she portrays, and particularly stress the characteristic Safford touch of sunlight streaming across a room or a stairway in her paintings.The American Institute of Architects reproduced Safford's painting of the stairway at Octagon House in Washington for its official Christmas card.She belonged to the Guild of Boston Artists, founded by John Singer Sargent. She also belonged to the American Watercolor Society and the Arts Club and Watercolor Society of Washington.Safford's nickname was Perky.Pictures of paintings in this article included Stairway of Black Mansion, Ellsworth, and the Living Room at Safford's home "Tranquility" Blue Hill, Maine. A number of her other paintings appear in this article. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, Virginia has her paintings. She painted interiors and exteriors of famous houses during the 1930s and she worked with Mrs. Crowningshield, formerly Miss Dupont of Delaware, who was Vice President of our Nation Trust. Safford's paintings were made into post cards and prints and sold at the National Historic Houses including George Washington's Wakefield, George Washington's Mount Vernon, and The house at Arlington National Cemetery. She lived in a Georgetown, Washington D.C. house and is buried there in a cemetery. The money from these post cards and prints was used to help restore and operate these as well as many other historic sites up and down the East Coast. Her husband was a Navel Captain and they used to sail with Mrs. Crowningshield in her very large boat. She was a member of the Washington D.C. Water Color Association as well as other associations. She was from Boston. She was considered one of the best artist of her time and only the very rich could afford her paintings.

Good condition, some scratches on the wood frame