Meetinghouse at Alna, Maine
Limited Edition Fine Art Print — by F. Wenderoth Saunders
In February 1959, subscribers across the country opened Ford Times to find Alna. The magazine's feature that month was "Maine's Valley of the Sheepscot" — written and painted by F.W. (Dick) Saunders, who lived in the valley and could see part of it from his studio window. Among his plates was the 1789 Meetinghouse on its green rise, the whole town gathered on the lawn. That watercolor is now offered as a numbered fine-art print in an edition of just five.
An edition of only 5 — each print hand-numbered in pencil and issued with a signed Certificate of Authenticity.
Also available — coming soon:
Studio Print — 10" × 8", hand numbered, edition of 25 · $50
Poster — open edition, unsigned · $30
Note Cards — 5" × 7", pack of 8 · $18
To reserve any of these, email historicalna@gmail.com and we'll let you know the moment they're ready.
About the Artwork
The Meetinghouse stands on an open green rise, seen from slightly below and to the left, beneath a big sky of piled cloud and broken blue. The yellow clapboards, the dark roof, the brick chimney, the green shutters, the pedimented entry with 1789 on the lintel — all of it as it still stands today. And in front of it, some sixty figures in coats and hats and Sunday dresses, standing and talking on the grass, thinning to small marks along the ridge at the right.
That crowd is what makes this painting different from every other picture of the building. This is the Meetinghouse in use.
Saunders tells us, in the same article, when that happened:
Town meetings are held in March and once a year in the summer the high pulpit is occupied, box pews are filled and old-time hymns lifted to the rafters.
The grass is green and the trees are in leaf, so this is almost certainly the summer service — the one Sunday a year the old building fills.
The magazine captioned the plate simply: Classic old New England Meetinghouse, at Alna, Maine. Of the Meetinghouse itself Saunders wrote that it was "the second oldest church now standing in Maine, a perfect example of the early New England wedding of church and state."
His own painted signature, SAUNDERS, sits in the lower right of the image, and reproduces in every print.
About the Edition
Each print is produced by Maine Photo Works in Portland on German Etching, a heavyweight cotton fine-art paper, using archival pigment inks expected to last 80–100+ years without noticeable fading. Reproduced from a 600 DPI scan of the original watercolor.
Saunders died in 1992, so these prints carry no pencil signature. Instead each is hand-numbered in pencil and issued with a signed Certificate of Authenticity recording the painting's history, its 1959 publication, and the print's place in the edition. His own painted signature — the SAUNDERS in the lower right — reproduces in every print. Once the edition of five is gone, no more will be made.
The painting belongs to Gordon and Elizabeth Davis, who live in Saunders' former house in Alna's Sheepscot Historic District — where the door knocker still reads Saunders. The original hangs at the Puddle Dock Village School.
$275 · Limited edition of 5 · 24″ × 18″ · German Etching fine-art paper · Archival pigment inks · Hand numbered with certificate of authenticity
Unframed, unmatted
Ships flat in a rigid, do-not-bend mailer via USPS, fully insured. Local pickup in Alna available — see options at checkout.
Hand-signed and numbered limited edition fine art print of Jonathan Luoma's watercolor "Alna Meetinghouse (1789) in Autumn." Edition of 5. 24″ × 18″ on German Etching fine-art paper, archival pigment inks, unframed.
A portion of each purchase supports Historic Alna's mission to maintain, preserve, restore, and encourage the use of Alna's historic sites.
Paying online is completely fine — but if you’d like to keep the full amount with Historic Alna, we’d be happy to take a check or cash instead. Card processing takes about 6% off the top; a check sends it all to the cause. Just email historicalna@gmail.com and we’ll reserve your print.
About the Artist
Francis Wenderoth Saunders (1901–1992) — Dick to those who knew him here — trained at the Massachusetts School of Art and took three degrees from Harvard, including an Ed.M. in Fine Arts. A Harvard fellowship sent him through Europe in 1925 drawing as he went, and he spent two summers studying painting under Allen Philbrick at the Art Institute of Chicago.
He taught painting for some thirty years, first in Havana, then sixteen years in Massachusetts and two on Long Island, writing and illustrating for the Christian Science Monitor along the way. Then came twelve years freelancing from Maine.
He completed more than a hundred watercolors for Ford's travel publications, illustrated books and articles by the Maine humorist John Gould, and wrote and illustrated three children's books for Little, Brown — Crossroads of Conquerors, Building Brooklyn Bridge, and Machines for You. His largest undertaking was a pictorial history of the steam locomotive from 1840 to 1946, at least thirty-five watercolors, commissioned by a former trustee of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Closer to home, he helped found the Maine Art Gallery in Wiscasset in 1956 and served as its first Chairman. It is still there. He was elected to the Guild of Boston Artists, and his work continues to appear at auction and through Childs Gallery in Boston.
He died on September 26, 1992.
F.W. "Dick" Saunders
At the easel.