The Jolly Flatboatmen
1846
Artist, American, 1811 - 1879
Sunlight bathes the landscape and warms the men on the flat-bottomed boat. We float along with them as they relax after a day’s work hauling cargo. A man at center dances joyfully to music provided by his companions. The others look on, except the man on the right, who turns toward us. George Caleb Bingham painted many works about life on and along the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. His knowledge of the American West is evident in the abundance of detail—a raccoon pelt, coiled rope, a turkey peeking through a slatted crate, a blue shirt hanging to dry—in this idyllic scene.
West Building Main Floor, Gallery 65
Artwork overview
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Medium
oil on canvas
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Credit Line
-
Dimensions
overall: 96.8 x 123.2 cm (38 1/8 x 48 1/2 in.)
framed: 116.8 x 143.8 x 10.5 cm (46 x 56 5/8 x 4 1/8 in.) -
Accession
2015.18.1
Artwork history & notes
Provenance
Submitted by the artist for sale to the American Art-Union, New York; recommended for purchase 9 October 1846 by the Union's executive committee, as Dance on the Flat boat; reported as chosen to be engraved as a mezzotint 2 November 1846 by the Union's committee on the engraving for 1847; officially renamed The Jolly Flatboatman [sic] 6 December 1846 by the Union's executive committee; turned over to the engraver 7 December 1846; payment for purchase approved 1 February 1847; awarded at its annual meeting 24 December 1847 by the Art-Union to Benjamin van Schaick.[1] Herbert Claiborne Pell, Jr. [1884-1961], New York; his son, Claiborne Pell [1918-2009], Washington, D.C., and Newport, Rhode Island;[2] Pell Family Trust; purchased 1986 by Richard A. Manoogian, Detroit; Richard and Jane Manoogian Foundation,Taylor, Michigan; purchased 8 April 2015 by NGA.
[1] The details of the painting's early history and the widely-distributed engraving made of it are traced by John Francis McDermott, "Jolly Flatboatmen: Bingham and His Imitators," Antiques 73, no. 3 (March 1958): 266-269. Benjamin van Schaick was a grocer who lived at 76 Warren Street in New York City. His receipt of the painting was announced in Transactions of the American Art-Union for the Year 1847, New York, 1848: 32, no. 1. McDermott speculates that the engraver finished with the painting in the spring of 1848, after which it was delivered to its new owner.
[2] The painting's location after 1847 was not publicly known until 1952, when the art historian Fern Rusk Shapley was invited by Claiborne Pell to see it in his Washington house. In 1954 Pell lent the painting to an exhibition at the City Art Museum of St. Louis, and Shapley published her article "Bingham's 'Jolly Flatboatmen'," Art Quarterly XVII, no. 4 (Winter 1954): 352-356. The article quotes a letter of 25 August 1954 from Claiborne Pell's father, Herbert C. Pell, Jr., to Shapley (356 n. 8), in which the elder Pell writes that his "great-grandfather William Pell" purchased the painting "direct from some exposition," that it was inherited by his grandfather Clarence Pell and hung in his grandmother's house at 119 East 36th Street in New York, and had been "in the family possession more than sixty years ago," which would have been in the late 19th century.
However, Herbert C. Pell, Jr.'s great-grandfather, William Ferris Pell, died in 1840, six years before the painting was created, and so could not have been the original Pell family owner. Herbert Jr.'s grandfather, Clarence Pell, lived from 1820 to 1865, and was possibly the Pell who purchased the painting, or it could have been another William in the large Pell family who acquired it. Further research may discover the details.
Associated Names
Exhibition History
1847
American Art-Union, New York, 1847, no. 1.
1954
Westward the Way. The character and development of the Louisiana Territory as seen by artists and writers of the nineteenth century, City Art Museum of St. Louis; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 1954-1955, no. 150.
1957
American Classics of the Nineteenth Century, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh; Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, Utica; Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond; Baltimore Museum of Art; Currier Gallery of Art, Manchester, New Hampshire, 1957-1958, no. 23 (shown only in Pittsburgh).
1967
George Caleb Bingham 1811-1879, National Collection of Fine Arts, Washington, D.C.; Cleveland Museum of Art; The Art Galleries, University of California at Los Angeles, 1967-1968, no. 13, fig. 6. (shown only in Washington, D.C.).
1972
The American West: Painters from Catlin to Russell, Los Angeles County Museum of Art; M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco; St. Louis Art Museum, 1972, no. 36, pl. 50.
1980
La Pintura de Los Estados Unidos de Museos de la Ciudad de Washington, Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City, 1980-1981, no. 10, color repro.
American Light: The Luminist Movement, 1850-1875, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1980, unnumbered catalogue, fig. 43.
1981
Rhode Island Collects, Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, 1981.
1988
Bilder aus der Neuen Welt: Amerikanische Malerei des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts, Nationalgalerie, Orangeries des Schlosses Charlottenburg; Kunsthaus Zurich, 1988-1989, no. 37, repro.
1989
American Paintings from the Manoogian Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Detroit Institute of Arts, 1989-1990, no. 23, repro.
1990
George Caleb Bingham, Saint Louis Art Museum; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1990, unnumbered catalogue, pls. 5 (detail), 37, 46 (detail); (shown in Saint Louis only for the first three weeks of the venue, then re-joined the 1989-1990 exhibition of the Manoogian collection).
2009
American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life 1765-1915, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2009-2010, unnumbered catalogue, fig. 49.
2014
Navigating the West: George Caleb Bingham and the River, Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth; Saint Louis Art Museum; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2014-2015, pl. 5.
2016
Dance! American Art 1830-1960, Detroit Institute of Arts, 2016, no. 26.
The Art of American Dance, Detroit Institute of Arts; Denver Art Museum; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, 2016-2017, no. 11, repro.
Bibliography
1847
Duyckinck, Evret A., ed. “The Fine Arts: The Art Union Pictures." The Literary World: A Gazette for Authors, Readers, and Publishers 2, no. 38 (October 23, 1847): 265, 277.
1848
Transactions of the American Art-Union, 1847. New York, 1848: 32, no. 1.
1917
Ruckstuhl, F. Wellington, ed. “George Caleb Bingham: An Early Painter of Missouri.” The Art World 3, no. 2 (November 1917): 94, 98, repro.
Shapley, Fern Helen Rusk. George Caleb Bingham: The Missouri Artist. Jefferson City, 1917: 33-37, 42, 121, plate XIX.
1930
Spencer, Thomas Edwin. A Missourian Worth Remembering: George Caleb Bingham. St. Louis, 1930: 23-24.
1954
Shapley, Fern Rusk. "Bingham's 'Jolly Flatboatmen'." The Art Quarterly. 17, no. 4 (Winter 1954): 352-356, repro.
1957
McDermott, John Francis. "Jolly Flatboatmen: Bingham and His Imitators." Antiques 73, no. 3 (March 1958): 266-267, repro.
1959
McDermott, John Francis. George Caleb Bingham, River Portraitist. Norman, Oklahoma, 1959: xxi, xxvii, 3, 49, 55-57, 58, 59, 181, 184, 189, 218, 414 (no. 31), pl. 22.
1966
Miller, Lillian B. Patrons and Patriotism: The Encouragement of the Fine Arts in the United States, 1700-1860. Chicago, 1966: 222.
1967
Bloch, E. Maruice. George Caleb Bingham: The Evolution of the Artist. Berkeley, 1967: xix, 84, 85, 87-92, 95, 98, 102, 103, 109, 136, 153, 234, 256, 302, 335, color plate 53.
Bloch, E. Maruice. George Caleb Bingham: A Catalogue Raisonné. Berkeley, 1967: 56 (no. 146[a]), 233.
1975
Christ-Janer, Albert. George Caleb Bingham: Frontier Painter of Missouri. New York, 1975: 66, [78], 170, color plate 20.
1976
Eager, Gerald. "The Iconography of the Boat in 19th-Century American Painting." Art Journal 35, no. 3 (Spring 1976): 227, fig. 6.
1977
Andrus, Lisa Fellows. "Measure and Design in American Painting, 1760-1860." Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, 1976: 57-59.
1986
Bloch, E. Maurice. The Paintings of George Caleb Bingham: A Catalogue Raisonné. Columbia, Missouri, 1986: xxi, 13, 175 (no. 175), 272, color plate 175.
1990
Michael Allen. Western Rivermen, 1763-1861: Ohio and Mississippi Boatmen and the Myth of the Alligator Horse. Baton Rouge, 1990: 17 nt. 23, 18, 25, 121, 215, 216, repro.
1991
Rash, Nancy. The Painting and Politics of George Caleb Bingham. New Haven, 1991: 67, 72-75, 82-86, 91, fig. 25.
Johns, Elizabeth. American Genre Painting: The Politics of Everyday Life. New Haven, 1991: 84-87, 137, 198, 226 (note 43), color plate 9.
1995
Holz, Keith. "Bringham, George Caleb." In Allgemeines Künstler-Lexikon, ed. Günther Meissner. Munich/Leipzig, 1995: 11:99, 100.
1996
Johns, Elizabeth. "Bingham, George Caleb." In The Dictionary of Art, ed. Jane Turner. 34 vols. New York and London, 1996: 4:72, repro.
1999
Gale, Robert. "Bingham, George Caleb." In American National Biography, ed. John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes. 24 vols. Oxford, 1999: 2:788.
Wilmerding, John. Compass and Clock: Defining Moments in American Culture. New York, 1999: 118, 119, fig. 40.
2005
Nagel, Paul C. George Caleb Bingham, Missouri’s Famed Painter and Forgotten Politician. Columbia and London, 2005: 53-54.
2008
Miller, Angela et al. American Encounters: Art, History, and Cultural Identity. Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2008: 226, 227, color fig. 7.17.
2011
Johns, Elizabeth. "Bingham, George Caleb." In The Grove Encyclopedia of American Art. 5 vols. Oxford, 2011: 1:271.
2012
Brownlee, Peter John. American Encounters: Genre Painting and Everyday Life. Exh. cat. Bentonville, 2013. Chicago, 2012: 28-30, 62, 64, color fig. 15. (The NGA painting was not in the exhibition.)
Udall, Sharyn Rohlfsen. Dance and American Art: A Long Embrace. Madison, 2012: 36-37, color fig. 18, back cover
2014
Conrads, Margaret C. "George Caleb Bingham and the River." Review of Navigating the West: George Caleb Bingham and the River. Exh. Amon Carter Museum, 2014-2015. American Art Review 26, no. 5 (September-October 2014): 65, color repro.
2015
Kennedy, Randy. "Inside Art: National Gallery Buys 'The Jolly Flatboatmen'." New York Times 164, no. 56,881 (May 29, 2015): C20, color repro.
Smith, Roberta. “The Frontier Life, Timeless and Still.” New York Times 164, no. 56,902 (June 19, 2015): C22, color repro.
Gardner, James. "One Off: 'There has never been another artist like George Caleb Bingham'." Review of "Navigating the West." Exh. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2015. The Magazine Antiques 182, no. 4 (July/August 2015): 112, 113, 116-117, color fig. 1, 3.
McCaughey, Patrick. "Down the River of Time." Review of Navigating the West. Exh. New York 2015 and exh. cat. Times Literary Supplement 5,863 (August 14, 2015): 18, color repro.
Schwartz, Sanford. "The Lure of Life on the Missouri." Reviews of "Navigating the West: George Caleb Bingham and the River," exhibition and exh. cat. New York 2015. New York Review of Books 62, no. 11 (July 25, 2015): 51.
Berry, Wendell and Sanford Schwartz. "Letters: Life on the Mississippi." New York Review of Books 62, no. 14: 93, color fig.
"Art for the Nation: The Story of the Patrons' Permanent Fund." National Gallery of Art Bulletin, no. 53 (Fall 2015): 5, repro.
2018
Corbett, David Peters. "Facingness in George Caleb Bingham's River Paintings." American Art 32, no. 2 (Summer 2018): 2, 7, 8-9, 10,11, 12, 14, 17, 19, 21, 22 note 13, color fig. 4.
2024
Conlin, Jonathan. The Met--A History of a Museum and Its People. New York, 2024: 30.
Inscriptions
lower right on boat: G. C. Bingham
Wikidata ID
Q20187667