For Immediate Release

CHADDS FORD, PA—The Brandywine River Museum recently acquired a beautiful and important painting by Thomas Doughty titled View of the Brandywine: Gilpin's Paper Mill. Completed in the late 1820s, the painting is a major addition to the museum's collection of landscape works and provides excellent documentation regarding the rural appearance of the lower Brandywine Valley during that period.

As a forerunner to Thomas Cole and the Hudson River School, Doughty was one of the earliest American artists to devote himself exclusively to landscape painting. For the young, aspiring artist from Philadelphia, the Brandywine Valley offered attractive and logical subject matter. His depictions of the area are gentle, picturesque, natural settings, with only a hint of drama.

Located along the Brandywine just north of Wilmington, Gilpin's Mill was the first paper mill in Delaware. Joshua Gilpin and his uncle established the mill in 1787 on family property called Kentmere after the Gilpins' ancestral home in England. In 1816, Thomas Gilpin patented and put into operation at the mill the first endless-sheet (roll) paper machine in America. After a series of fires and floods, the property was sold in 1831.

View of the Brandywine: Gilpin's Paper Mill, 12 7/8 x 17 7/8 inches, is now on view in the museum's first floor gallery. 

Located on U.S. Route 1 in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, the Brandywine River Museum is open daily, 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., except Christmas Day. Admission is $8 for adults; $5 for seniors ages 65 and over, students with I.D., and children; and free for children under six and Brandywine Conservancy members. For more information, call 610-388-2700 or visit the museum's web site at www.brandywinemuseum.org.

For digital photography of works appearing in the exhibition, please call 610-388-8337 or email jmaguire@brandywine.org.