Conservator Marylou Davis repairs a Rufus Porter mural at Fruitlands earlier this spring. (Photos by Lisa Aciukewicz)

Credited with a list of achievements that rival those of Benjamin Franklin and Leonardo daVinci, itinerant painter, inventor, author, and dancing school master Rufus Porter left his indelible mark on Harvard in the form of several dramatic and evocative large-scale murals located in three different buildings in town. Recent restoration of the Porter mural in the Trustees Room of the Fruitlands Museum led this reporter on a short tour of all the Porter murals in Harvard, which historians believe were painted in the 1830s.

Born in 1792 in West Boxford, Porter was a true American Renaissance man. He held hundreds of patents for different inventions and is credited with the original design of the Colt 45; he was the founder and editor of Scientific American magazine. In addition to the hundreds of murals he painted throughout New England and as far south as Virginia, he fathered 16 children over the course of his lifetime. When Porter died in 1882 at the age of 92, his list of accomplishments read like that of 10 separate men. His murals, once considered so commonplace they were often plastered over, are now valued at tens of thousands of dollars after a renewed interest in his work was sparked in the 1940s by historian Jean Lipman.

The Fruitlands mural, a five-foot-by-nine-foot landscape that melds Colonial architecture with exotic foliage, was painted in a soft gray-green monochrome that conservator Andrew Ladygo described as typical of Porter’s work. The mural, which originally resided at the Harvard home of the Whitney family, was removed and taken to Fruitlands at the direction of Clara Endicott Sears in 1939. “That’s the last time the mural was restored in any way,” Ladygo said as he worked at stabilizing the adhesive backing on the piece last winter. Ladygo, who specializes in restoring antique murals, was carefully injecting adhesive onto the backing. As he worked with a glue-filled syringe under bright light, he paused to admire the quality of the painting. “This is unique,” he said. “It’s a fantasy scene clearly inspired by something in the South Pacific, probably the Sandwich Islands.” The Sandwich Islands, now Hawaii, became a source of inspiration for Porter after he traveled there as a young man on a trading voyage, Lipman noted in her book, Rufus Porter: Yankee Pioneer. She also noted that the combination of classic New England architecture and tropical landscape was a trademark style for Porter, and enables historians to authenticate his often unsigned paintings as they are uncovered.

Section of a Rufus Porter mural in Roy Moffa’s Oak Hill Road home. (Photo by Lisa Aciukewicz)

Conservator Marylou Davis also worked on the Fruitlands mural, mixing historically accurate paint to restore the artwork’s full color while maintaining historic accuracy. “We never remove historic fabric or change it in any way,” she said. The mural, now fully restored, is on view for all visitors to the Fruitlands Museum during opening hours.

Porter often painted for as little as room and board, and arrived in a new town with brochures advertising his services as muralist and portrait painter. He received another commission from the owners of the Harvard Inn on Fairbank Street, and painted the first- and second-floor hallways. Although the work is unsigned, it has all the attributes of his other paintings—somber, monochrome colors depicting lush-leafed trees and four-over-four Colonial homes—and is widely attributed to him. While classic Porter in imagery, the dark plum color and obvious wear-and-tear on the image give it a timeworn look not seen at Fruitlands, or the mural painted in the living room of the Moffa house on Oak Hill Road.

Roy Moffa, whose mid-1820s house features a Porter mural in the living room, also has a green monochrome landscape. This mural is somewhat different from the other two, featuring the imagery of a typical Colonial farm rather than a seascape. The mural, which covers three contiguous walls, may continue on to a fourth wall that is now covered by wallboard, Moffa speculated, but so far he has been content to stay curious and enjoy the picture as it is. Bright red buildings—never a Porter trademark—are dotted throughout the predominantly green painting, thanks to the artistic efforts of one of the home’s former owners, Moffa noted. “She wanted to make it livelier,” he said. This original touch, however, doesn’t detract from the mural’s classic Porter composition: exotic, stylized trees in the foreground; classic Colonial homes and barns in the middle ground; and soft, rounded mountains in the background.

In addition to painting the murals himself, Porter had a strong desire to teach others the craft. At one point, he published an instruction book, one of many how-to books and articles that he wrote in his lifetime. Lipman points out that although the subjects Porter wrote about varied greatly, he demonstrated a consistent commitment to teaching others throughout his very inconsistent life. In fact, Lipman describes Porter as a very democratic artist, able to produce—and encourage others to produce—decorative pictures quickly, inexpensively, and in large numbers.

The Rufus Porter Museum and Cultural Heritage Center recently opened in Bridgton, Maine, as part of an ongoing effort to continue Porter’s tradition of teaching the decorative arts. The museum, located in a home with murals painted in 1828, is an exhibition and teaching facility designed to preserve the traditional arts and sciences of the 19th and 20th centuries. In addition to painting, the museum offers classes, workshops, and lectures on furniture, candlemaking, wood carving, and fiber arts. For more information, visit www.rufusportermuseum.org.