American Paintings 1750–1900

On View: West Building, Main Floor

Filter Results

166 artworks on view.

Results

Cows, horses, sheep, and pigs stand closely together in a band across the bottom edge of this horizontal painting. Rolling hills open onto grassy lawns, farms, and fields beyond. The two dozen cows spanning the leftmost two-thirds of the painting are cream white, tawny, russet, or dark brown, or speckled with brown or black and white. White sheep, six adult and one baby, cluster beyond the cows, to our left. Five black pigs are behind the cows across the middle of the picture, one of them suckling several piglets. Nine horses and foals gathered to our right are white, gray, or one of several shades of brown. The land on which the animals stand is teal blue underfoot. Pale green, grassy plots rise gently to either side of a trough or irrigation ditch that comes toward us from a culvert at the far side of the field. Eight men wearing tall hats, coats, and pants gather in pairs beyond the animals, and one man, farther in the distance, walks alone. The grassy lawn is hemmed to each side by fences, and more run across the back of the space. A man walks behind a horse-drawn plow to our right. There is a line of five spindly trees in front of the fence to our left. Three cows lie in that enclosure not far from one more tree. Several buildings painted with cream white and barn red line the plots across the back of the space. Beyond, painted lightly, as if hazy, lines of crops or trees blur into the horizon, which comes about two-thirds of the way up the composition. The sky above is pale petal pink, and it deepens to icy blue across the top edge. A couple bunches of white and tan-colored clouds drift to our right. Brown lettering against a sand-colored ground along the bottom edge reads, “An Indian summer view of the Farm & Stock of James C. Cornell of Northampton Bucks county Pennsylvania. Tat took the Premium in the Agricultural society, october the 12, 1848 Painted by E. Hicks in the 69th year of his age.” The name James C. Cornell is in all caps, and October begins with a lowercase o.

The Cornell Farm

Edward Hicks

1848

Oil on canvas  Accession ID  1964.23.4

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M63
Download artwork
A woman with dark hair pulled up in a bun, wearing a long, muted lilac-purple silk dress, stands singing in front of woman playing a piano and a man playing a cello in a dimly lit room in this vertical painting. All the people have pale skin. Light falls from our left onto the singing woman and the musicians sit in shadow behind her. The singing woman’s body is angled to our right, almost in profile, and she looks up and off into the distance with the light illuminating the curve of her forehead and right cheek. She has dark eyes, an oval face, and her lips are parted. She holds a sheet of paper, presumably music, down at her waist. Her pale purple dress is edged with lace at the neck and cuffs. A ruffle runs down the side of her floor-length skirt, and a ruffle lines the bottom hem around her feet. A train affixed to the back of the dress rests on the floor behind her. Both musicians face our right in profile. To our left, the man playing the cello has a white beard and hair, and he wears a dark suit and glasses. To our right, the woman at the piano wears a dark dress, and her dark hair is pulled up. The singing woman stands on a brick-red, patterned area rug, and the wall behind her is papered with sunflowers loosely sapced against a mottled, gold and caramel-brown background. A tall, light blue vase sits on a mantlepiece along the left edge, next to the cello player. A gold-framed picture hangs on the wall over the pianist.

Singing a Pathetic Song

Thomas Eakins

1881

Oil on canvas  Accession ID  2014.79.19

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M68
Download artwork
Two men with pale skin, wearing white sleeveless shirts and royal-blue caps, row in unison in a long, narrow boat on a placid blue river in this horizontal landscape painting. The low, honey-colored wooden boat extends off both sides of the canvas. Both men face our left as they row to our right. The man in front looks ahead of him, beyond the stern of the boat, and the man to our right, closer to the bow, tucks his chin down to look past his shoulder. Their bare, muscled arms are extended straight as the two oars sweep back. The tip of another boat runs close and parallel to the bottom edge of the composition, spanning the left three-quarters of the painting. The opposite riverbank is lined with a dense forest of pine-green trees. People crowd along the decks of a steamboat and a paddleboat near the riverbank to our left. Another narrow skuller, rowed by four people wearing ruby-red shirts, cuts through the water at the back center of the river. The riverbank beyond is lined with people, painted with strokes of black and white, and minuscule touches of red. The horizon comes halfway up the composition. Cream-white clouds float across a muted, topaz-blue sky above the trees.

The Biglin Brothers Racing

Thomas Eakins

1872

Oil on canvas  Accession ID  1953.7.1

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M68
Download artwork
This painting shows a man seated, with his full body visible. His body is slightly turned to the right, but he looks out at us, one hand resting on his knee and the other holding a sword upright. The man has a serious expression, light skin, a square jawline, and high cheekbones. His hair is dark and styled neatly. He is wearing formal attire consisting of a blue coat with gold buttons, a yellow waistcoat with white frilled cuffs, and beige breeches with button details. His stockings are white, and his shoes are black with rectangular buckles. Nearby, on a table, rests a black tricorn hat with gold trim. The background features a window or painting depicting lines of soldiers, horses, and trees under a dark blue sky.

Captain Samuel Chandler

Winthrop Chandler

c. 1780

Oil on canvas  Accession ID  1964.23.1

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M63
Download artwork
We look out onto a sweeping, panoramic view with trees, their leaves fiery orange and red, framing a view of a distant body of water under a sun-streaked sky in this long, horizontal landscape painting. The horizon comes about halfway up the composition, and is lined with hazy mountains and clouds in the deep distance. Close examination slowly reveals minuscule birds tucked into the crimson-red, golden yellow, and deep, sage-green leaves of the trees to either side of the painting. Closest to us, vine-covered, fallen tree trunks and mossy gray boulders line the bottom edge of the canvas. Beyond a trickling waterfall and small pool near the lower left corner, and tiny within the scale of the landscape, a group of three men and their dogs sit and recline around a blanket and a picnic basket, their rifles leaning against a tree nearby. The land sweeps down to a grassy meadow crossed by a meandering stream that winds into the distance, at the center of the painting. Touches of white and gray represent a flock of grazing sheep in the meadow. A low wooden bridge spans the stream to our right, and a few cows drink from the riverbank. Smoke rises from chimneys in a town lining the riverbank and shoreline beyond, and tiny white sails and steamboats dot the waterway. Light pours onto the scene with rays like a starburst from behind a lavender-gray cloud covering the sun, low in the sky. The artist signed the painting as if he had inscribed the flat top of a rock at the lower center of the landscape with his name, the title of the painting, and date: “Autumn – on the Hudson River, J.F Cropsey, London 1860.”

Autumn - On the Hudson River

Jasper Francis Cropsey

1860

Oil on canvas  Accession ID  1963.9.1

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M64
Download artwork
Shown from the knees up, a light-skinned man and woman are seated side-by-side on grassy rise in a landscape in this horizontal portrait painting. To our left, the man leans heavily toward the woman to our right, propped on one elbow near her hip. She sits upright, resting one hand over his forearm and wrist. The clean-shaven man looks at her with blue eyes under gray, arched brows. He has a straight nose, round cheeks, a hint of a double chin, and his pale pink lips are closed in a slight smile. He wears a forest-green coat, a white waistcoat embroidered with golden yellow, a white shirt and ruffled tie, and buff-colored breaches. His right hand, to our left, is propped loosely against his hip. Next to that hand, a green parrot stands with its wings lifted as it turns its head back over its body. The man’s other hand, near the woman, holds a long, wooden telescope. The woman looks off into the distance to our left with gray eyes. She has smooth cheeks, a delicate nose, and her pink lips also curl in a faint smile. A strand of pearls weaves through the brown hair loosely piled on her head and through the thick curls that fall over her shoulders. Her white dress is loosely draped around her body. An ocean-blue sash with gold stripes and fringe wraps around her waist, and a sprig of pink flowers is tucked into a fold at her neckline. She holds at least three peaches and a stem of leaves in her lap, and a spray of purple clover blossoms in her other hand, which rests lightly over the man’s forearm. A swath of white fabric, perhaps from her skirt, wraps up and over the man’s thigh, closer to her. Behind the woman, a tree grows on a low hill along the right edge of the canvas and off the top. The landscape opens into an expansive vista to our left with spindly trees growing in a low meadow that leads back to a body of water in the deep distance. Minuscule in scale, tiny boats and buildings line the water’s edge near the horizon. A few thin, silvery gray and petal-pink clouds skim across the pale blue sky.

Benjamin and Eleanor Ridgely Laming

Charles Willson Peale

1788

Oil on canvas  Accession ID  1966.10.1

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M62
Download artwork
A turreted, sprawling stone castle, bronzed by the setting sun, crowns a rocky cliff at the center of this horizontal landscape painting. A round turret rises in the center of the castle’s jumble of blocky, square buildings. The buildings are dramatically outlined against a mass of roiling charcoal-gray and indigo-blue clouds, which are edged in peach, in the upper right corner. Barely noticeable amid the hulking structure, a scarlet-red flag flutters from a window in the tower overlooking a distant crag to our right. On that distant mountain, a column of amber smoke rises to mingle with the clouds above a bright band of sunlight on the horizon. Low trees and bushes grow around the base of the battlements. The land dips steeply toward us to a river below the cliff. Through the tangle of trees, a dirt road winds down the hill to a bridge of pale stone that crosses the river in front of us, to our left of center. Groups of helmeted horsemen cross the bridge, passing under a stone archway at its center. Near the bridge, tiny in scale, a herd of goats capers on the road near the horsemen as they ride on in a double column coming toward us along the clay-brown road. One rider carries a red pennant fluttering in the breeze. The riders wear ruby-red tunics and carry upright lances and shields. Light glints off their armor and helmets as they head to our right, toward the dark mass of tangled trees and rocky cliff on the border of the picture. A copse of low, gnarled trees grows near the opposite edge of the painting, to our left. Behind these trees and riders stretches a river valley spanned by another stone bridge. A cluster of people can barely be seen near and along that massive bridge in the distance. Beyond, buildings and a tall, square tower are lit by fires belching clouds of smoke. A heavy bank of gray clouds obscures the rest of the valley. Birds soar in the mist near a distant cliff, where flames and more smoke rise behind a boulder. In the deep distance to our left, a high, craggy cliff topped by a sprinkling of snow surges above the blanket of fog and clouds. In front of a clear, blue sky, it is also bathed in coral-red by the setting sun.

The Spirit of War

Jasper Francis Cropsey

1851

Oil on canvas  Accession ID  1978.12.1

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M64
Download artwork

Mrs. Samuel Chandler

Winthrop Chandler

c. 1780

Oil on canvas  Accession ID  1964.23.2

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M63
Download artwork
Three small children with pale pink skin sit and stand among a group of animals to our right as a group of eight indigenous people with light brown skin gather with eight white-skinned men near a riverbank in the distance to our left in this horizontal painting. The children and animals take up the right two-thirds of the composition. They gather on a flat-topped spit of land, which is covered in grass. All three children have blond hair and rounded features. Two sit on the ground at the bottom center of the painting. The largest animal is a caramel-brown bull, which stands next to a pale golden lion. The other animals are smaller in scale, and include a tiger, wolf, sheep, goats, cows, bears, and a jaguar, all sitting or standing at rest around the bull and lion. At the top center of the group of animals, one child stands over the lion’s back and has one arm around the tiger’s shoulders, and another child at the lower center touches the jaguar’s nose. A tree with olive-green, rust-red, and harvest-yellow leaves grows up the right edge of the canvas, in front of a tall, forest-green bush. On another spit of flat-topped, elevated grassy land to our left, six of the indigenous people stand in a row, wearing feathered headdresses. Two more kneel in front, creating a U-shape. The two in front wear loin cloths, and all eight wear gold earrings and necklaces. They face a gathering of eight men wearing tricorn hats, long coats, waistcoats, knee-length britches, and stockings in shades of gray, blue, white, brown, and orange. One of these men hold up a roll of cloth lifted out of a chest. Trees with spindly trunks and golden yellow canopies reach into the top corner of the painting along the left edge. The river extends into the distance beyond this group, with pale, sage-green hills carpeted in trees. Puffy white clouds float across a sky that deepens from pale shell pink along the horizon to light blue along the top. The features of the animals and children are painted simply and appear rather flat, giving them an almost cartoonish look.

Peaceable Kingdom

Edward Hicks

c. 1834

Oil on canvas  Accession ID  1980.62.15

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M63
Download artwork
A man with pale white skin sits and a man with light brown skin stands in front of a cave-like, rocky outcropping in this vertical portrait painting. The light-skinned man closer to us has dark brown hair, and the light falls more strongly on him. He sits propped on or against a rock with his body angled to our left, and he looks off into the distance in that direction. He wears a scarlet-red overcoat, a white waistcoat, and moccasins. What appears to be an animal skin painted on the underside with red, tan, and black geometric patterns is tied around his chest and falls over his left arm, on our right. With that hand, he holds a musket like a walking stick. He also holds a black cap ornamented with beads and feathers on his other knee. The man with brown skin stands in shadow behind the other man, to our left. His body faces us, and he looks at the seated man. A dark cloak encircles his shoulders and is gathered around his waist. A strap crosses his bare chest and the strap, bracelets, and a feathered headdress seem to be beaded. Large gold rings curve from his earlobes up over his ears. A puff of smoke emerges from the top of the long, painted stick he holds, suggesting it is a pipe. He holds his left hand, on our right, at his chest, and points subtly to our left, perhaps to the landscape seen through a break in the rocky outcropping. There, in front of a waterfall in the distance, a small group of people with light brown skin gather around a camp fire in front of a tent-like structure.

Colonel Guy Johnson and Karonghyontye (Captain David Hill)

Benjamin West

1776

Oil on canvas  Accession ID  1940.1.10

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M62
Download artwork
We look across a dark, aquamarine-blue body of water at a bulky, stony outcropping to our right in this horizontal landscape painting. The horizon comes about a third of the way up the composition, and the sky above is pale blue, lightening to almost white along the horizon. Close to us, gentle waves break over rocks and boulders along the beach. The face of the rocky outcropping to our right rises vertically from the water and is tan and caramel brown, with some dark green vegetation growing in its crevasses. At its foot, down by the water, a lone fisherman with a pole stands on a rock casting his line. He wears a red shirt and brown pants, and is tiny in scale next to the rock formation. Farther in the distance, to our left along the horizon, a spring-green spit of land extends into the water. White boats with full sails are visible in the distance. One boat is silhouetted against a far, sunbathed shore.

Beacon Rock, Newport Harbor

John Frederick Kensett

1857

Oil on canvas  Accession ID  1953.1.1

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M67
Download artwork
A woman with pale skin and dark brown hair is swathed in silky fabric as she reclines along a gray couch in this horizontal painting. Her head rests along the backrest of the sofa to our left, so her body extends to our right. Her torso is wrapped in a voluminous, ivory-white scarf or wrap. The scarf wraps tightly around her neck, and the bottom edge, near her knees, has a wide, indigo-blue pattern of ovals and vegetal forms. Her shimmering silver gray skirt is painted loosely with baby and sky blue, olive and sage green, and white strokes, and it drapes over the cushions and down the front of the couch. Her hands are clasped so her interwoven fingers rest at her navel. She looks down and off to our right. A table to our left is edged with gold. The wall behind her, above the couch, is painted with long streaks of eggshell white and pale turquoise. The gold frame of a dark painting hanging over the couch spans the width of the composition. Near the upper right corner of the canvas, the artist included a signature and as if he had signed the painting within this painting with loose, dark letters: “John S. Sargent 1911.”

Nonchaloir (Repose)

John Singer Sargent

1911

Oil on canvas  Accession ID  1948.16.1

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M70
Download artwork

Loading Results