John Toole

O'Toole, John
American, 1815 - 1860

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The painting depicts a wintry scene from an elevated point of view, showing people skating and playing games on a frozen river. On the left, leafless trees line the frozen bank. On the right, there are brown buildings with snow on their roofs and smoke rising from their chimneys. A woman stands on one of the porches, holding a small child. On the snowy ground outside the buildings, a sled is being pulled by two horses. In the center of the painting is the wide frozen river. The people on it wear colorful clothes in shades of red, yellow, green, blue, and brown. Some of them slip and fall on the ice, and others lace skates on their feet. Four men in the center hold long curved sticks and look towards a small round ball on the surface of the ice. In the distance, the horizon is marked by blue-tinged mountains under a cloudy gray sky.
John Toole, Skating Scene, c. 1835, oil on canvas, Gift of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch, 1958.9.6

Skating Scene

John Toole · c. 1835 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1958.9.6

Bibliography

0

  • John Toole Papers. Manuscript Department, University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Virginia, n.d.: no. 4876.

1956

  • O'Neal, William B. John O'Toole. Exh. brochure, Bayly Art Museum of the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, 1956.

1960

  • O'Neal, William B. Primitive Into Painter: Life and Letters of John Toole. Charlottesville, Virginia, 1960.

1992

  • Chotner, Deborah, with contributions by Julie Aronson, Sarah D. Cash, and Laurie Weitzenkorn. American Naive Paintings. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1992: 383-384.