Mishap at the Ford

1818

Alvan T. Fisher

Associated Names
Alvan Fisher

Painter, American, 1792 - 1863

This painting depicts a river crossing. In the center of the painting, a horse-drawn carriage is at the river's edge. The carriage itself is on the right, the wheels still partially submerged in the water, while on the left the four horses are climbing up into the bank. The horses appear to be in distress, rearing up onto their back legs and raising their heads into the air. A man on the shore is trying to calm them down, his hands raised upwards. Behind the man, on the left side of the painting, is an abandoned fishing rod and basket, and a small brown dog appears to chew one of the fishing lines. The people in the carriage - two women in dresses and feathered hats and two men in dark uniforms with gold details - look towards the horses with wide eyes and open, downturned mouths. At the base of the carriage, there is a man in a blue coat standing in the water, grasping the long reins of the horses. A black top hat floats near him on the shore. On the right, another dog stands in the water, facing the carriage. Behind it, men in a long wooden boat help a man who is submerged in the water, lifting him up towards the boat. In the distance, behind the carriage, three people can be seen on the opposite bank of the river, their hands raised. All of the people in the painting have light skin. The carriage is bright yellow against the blue-gray water, and the shore on the left is a strip of brown dirt with small gray pebbles that leads into dark green grass. On the left and right, the bank is lined with tall, dark green trees. The horizon shows green hills and a distant light-blue mountain range. The sky is pale blue with white clouds tinged with peach, and the water beneath it reflects these colors.

Media Options

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Artwork overview

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Possibly S.W. (possibly Samuel Wyllys) Pomeroy, Esq., Cincinnati, c. 1849.[1] (Irving Barlow, Boston area),1955/1956; acquired 1955/1956 by (Vose Galleries, Boston);[2] purchased April 1957 by the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington; acquired 2015 by the National Gallery of Art.
[1] If a painting titled Crossing the Ford, and lent to the Western Art-Union in Cincinnati in 1849, is this painting, it was lent by Pomeroy.
[2] Vose Galleries, in a letter of 5 April 1957 to Corcoran director Hermann Warner Williams, Jr. (in NGA curatorial files), writes that the painting "appeared a few months ago in the Boston area, in the hands of an antique dealer." The painting "had graduated through several hands to a small picture dealer before it came to [the attention of Vose Galleries]." Vose Galleries had no success tracing the painting beyond the first dealer, whose name was provided to Emily Shapiro of the Corcoran by Siobhan Wheeler of Vose Galleries in an e-mail of 3 March 2004 (copy in NGA curatorial files).

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1849

  • Possibly Gallery of the Western Art Union, Cincinnati, c. May - October 1849, no. 32 as Crossing the Ford.

1956

  • [Loan exhibition of early American paintings, from Vose Galleries], Old Sturbridge Village, November 1956, no catalogue.

1963

  • Progress of an American Collection, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 26 October - 29 December 1963, unpublished checklist.

1976

  • Corcoran [The American Genius], Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 1963, no checklist.

1981

  • Of Time and Place: American Figurative Art from the Corcoran Gallery, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Wshington; Cincinnati Art Museum; San Diego Museum of Art; University of Kentucky, Lexington; Hunter Museum of Art, Chattanooga; Philbrook Art Center, Tulsa; Portland Art Museum, Oregon; Des Moines Art Center; Museum of Fine Arts, Saint Petersburg, 1981-1983, no. 1.

1984

  • Georgian Canada: Conflict and Culture, 1745-1820, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, 7 June - 21 October 1984, no. 207.

1986

  • Views and Visions: American Landscape before 1830, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 21 September 1986 - 29 March 1987, unnumbered checklist.

2004

  • Figuratively Speaking: The Human Form in American Art, Corcoran gallery of Art, Washington, 20 November 2004 - 7 August 2005, unpublished checklist.

2008

  • The American Evolution: A History Through Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 1 March - 27 July 2008, unpublished checklist.

2009

  • American Paintings from the Collection, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 6 June-18 October 2009, unpublished checklist.

2013

  • American Journeys: Visions of Place, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 21 September 2013 - 28 September 2014, unpublished checklist.

Bibliography

1966

  • Phillips, Dorothy W. A Catalogue of the Collection of American Paintings in The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Vol. 1: Painters born before 1850. Washington, 1966: :53, repro. 54.

2000

  • Cash, Sarah, with Terrie Sultan. American Treasures of the Corcoran Gallery of Art. New York, 2000: 34, repro.

2011

  • Carson, Jenny. "Alvan Fisher, Mishap at the Ford." In Corcoran Gallery of Art: American Paintings to 1945. Edited by Sarah Cash. Washington, 2011: 66-67, 257, repro.

Inscriptions

lower center: A. Fisher, pinx. Feb 7 1818

Wikidata ID

Q46626609

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