American Paintings 1750–1900

On View: West Building, Main Floor

166 artworks on view.

Cottage Scenery

George Caleb Bingham

1845

Oil on canvas Accession ID 2014.79.6

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M65

This painting shows a woman seated on a chair, looking down at a book she holds. She has light skin, short, wavy brown hair, and bright pink lips. She is turned slightly to the right, and most of her features are unclear. She wears an ornate pink dress with ruffles down the skirt, a high collar, and slightly puffed sleeves. The wall behind her is a reddish-brown color, while the ground is light gray. The brushstrokes in the painting are thick and visible.

Peach Blossom

Beatrix Godwin Whistler

c. 1890-1894

Oil on wood Accession ID 1943.11.8

Not on view

In this painting, a large half watermelon with vibrant red flesh and black seeds sits at the center of a white plate with a silver knife on top of it. Surrounding it on the long wooden table are various fruits, such as a yellow pineapple, red and green grapes, dark red plums, pink peaches, and a partially peeled orange. Below the table are some pumpkins or squash, as well as what could be figs or radishes. A yellow-and-black bird is perched on the handle of a yellow basket of mixed fruit placed behind the watermelon. Around the basket are white and pink flowers. In the background, on the left of the painting, a window reveals a scenic landscape featuring a winding river cutting through a green valley and dark, tree-filled hills below a light blue sky with faint pink clouds. The wall behind the table is a plain gray color.

Fruit and Baltimore Oriole

Wagguno

1858

Oil on canvas Accession ID 1980.62.47

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M63

Shown from the knees up, a woman with brown, wrinkled skin, wearing a white blouse, apron, and black skirt is shown in front of a pale gray background in this vertical portrait painting. Straight-backed, she faces and looks at us with her hands resting in her lap. Her wavy, iron-gray hair is parted in the center and pulled back from her face. Her eyebrows are slightly raised, and her face is deeply lined down her cheeks and around her mouth. She wears a heart-shaped brooch with a red stone at its center at her neck and a gold band on her left ring finger. The light coming from our left casts a shadow against the wall to our right. The artist signed and dated the painting in the lower right corner: “A.J. MOTLEY. JR. 1922.”

Portrait of My Grandmother

Archibald John Motley Jr.

1922

Oil on canvas Accession ID 2018.2.1

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M66

Sheer, vertical, cliffs, brightly lit in cream white and rust orange by the low sun, tower over a band of people riding horses into the distance in this long, horizontal landscape painting. The glowing cliffs dominate the upper right quadrant of the painting. They lighten from burnt orange along the jagged tops to flame orange down the steep sides, and are and warm, parchment white near the earth. One tall, narrow promontory to our right looms over a range of lower, rounded cliffs. As the cliffs move into the distance, they are shrouded with a lavender-purple haze. The land closest to us dips into a shallow valley at the bottom center of the composition, leading away from us. The dirt-packed earth is dotted with pine-green, scrubby bushes and vegetation and a grove of low, gnarled trees a short distance to our right. One chestnut-brown horse walks along the path at the bottom center of the composition, lagging behind a cluster of at least two dozen horses and riders winding into the distance. The horses range from ivory white to tawny brown and charcoal gray. The riders are loosely painted so some details are indistinct, but they all seem to have brown skin and dark hair. They wear feathered headdresses and garments in teal blue, fawn brown, or golden yellow. They ride over a low hill toward a crystal-blue river, and then back along a flat expanse toward a row of minuscule, triangular tepees lining the horizon in the deep distance. The horizon comes halfway up the composition, and the tepees are backed by a row of rose-pink, flat-topped cliffs. A pale yellow disk hangs low in the sky, over the distant cliffs. The sky above deepens from soft, lilac purple along the horizon to ice and sapphire blue along the top. A few wispy clouds are burnished orange in the sunlight. The artist signed and dated the painting in the lower right corner, “TYMoran 1881,” with the T, Y, and M overlapping to make a monogram.

Green River Cliffs, Wyoming

Thomas Moran

1881

Oil on canvas Accession ID 2011.2.1

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M67

Light pours over a woman and a dozen children of different ages standing in small groups near a boxy, red schoolhouse in this horizontal painting. The people all have pale or tanned skin and wear clothing in earthy tones of brown, black, white, and pale yellow. The woman stands at the lower center of the composition on a dirt-packed area in front of the building. She wears a white hat tied with a black ribbon under the back of her hair and a long black dress. Two girls in floppy hats, each wearing ankle-length dresses, and a young boy holding a pail stand around her. The other children wear pants and long-sleeved shirts, and some wear hats. A child stands in the open doorway along the right edge of the schoolhouse. The building has two windows on the same side as the door and a short chimney on the shallowly angled gray roof. On the short side of the building, a child paints the letters “WH” in white on the red boards of the building. A hill rises behind the schoolhouse and off the top right corner of the canvas. A sliver of white clouds against a pale blue sky cuts across the top left corner. The artist signed the painting in the lower left corner, “WINSLOW HOMER.”

School Time

Winslow Homer

c. 1874

Oil on canvas Accession ID 2014.18.19

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M68

This painting shows a young girl standing beside a large dog. The girl has a fair complexion and straight brown hair that falls on her shoulders. She is wearing a dark burgundy dress with a white lace collar, black stockings, and shoes. She looks directly at us. The dog to the left reaches almost to her shoulder and has a light gray coat. Its mouth is slightly open, revealing a pink tongue and the tips of white teeth. The background is mostly plain gray walls, but on the right side there is elegant drapery in shades of deep red and gold with intricate teal designs.

Isabelita and Thor

Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida

1893

Oil on canvas Accession ID 2025.5.1

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M69

This painting displays an open safe filled with stacks of banknotes and coins. The safe is gray, while the money inside is in shades of green, red, and tan. The paper currency is in large bills, from $1,000 to $10,000, and the stacks are tied with pink ribbons. On the top shelf of the safe is a stack of large silver coins and smaller bronze coins. Hanging below the coins is a note on yellow paper titled "Semi-annual account" that lists the amounts of several categories: "Receipt", "Expenses", "Profit", "U.S.& B. Notes", and "Gold&Silver". The total amount is "492,392,296.50". The yellow lettering at the top of the safe reads "N.S.E. & W.R.R. DIVIDEND'S SAFE." The floor that the safe is on is a tan-and-gray checkered pattern.

Safe Money

Victor Dubreuil

1898 or later

Oil on canvas Accession ID 2015.19.167

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M65

We look slightly down onto a rocky, natural stone arch next to a cave opening, both perched on a high, grassy cliff in front of a shimmering, aquamarine-blue body of water in this horizontal landscape painting. The arch is situated to our left of center, and the cave beyond the gaping opening extends off the left side of the canvas. In tones of ash and caramel brown, the jagged arch and outcroppings are lit from our left so deep shadows are cast along crevasses to our right. Shadow also sweeps across the emerald-green grass at the base of the arch and cave. A few more serrated rocks poke out of the water like teeth far below, to our right, presumably at the base of the cliff on which we are situated. To our left, the rocky shoreline juts into the water in the distance in front of mauve-purple mountains in the deep distance along the horizon, which comes about halfway up this composition. Tiny in scale, minuscule, triangular white sails dot the waterway. Similarly tiny white birds fly high above the water. Pale, petal-pink and white clouds line the horizon beneath a sky that deepens from light turquoise over the clouds to the same aquamarine blue of the water below.

Natural Arch at Capri

William Stanley Haseltine

1871

Oil on canvas Accession ID 1989.13.1

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M67

This is a painting of an outdoor scene with a group of people gathered in front of a blue-gray wooden building with a dark door and two windows. Sunflowers grow on either side of the entrance, stretching up to the windows. The ground is painted in patches of tan, brown, and gray, perhaps indicating stone steps or a path. To the left of center is a group of shapes and colors that suggest four or five people gathered together on the ground. The people are painted with rough brushstrokes and have no distinct details or facial features. Their clothes are painted in shades of white, tan, gray, red, and pale blue, and appear to include dresses, bonnets, shirts, and suspenders. Their skin seems to be painted in shades of dark brown. There is a small stool or chair in the bottom right corner, and in the top left corner is a green area with white birds visible.

Sketch of a Cottage Yard

Winslow Homer

c. 1876

Oil on academy board Accession ID 2014.136.83

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M68

A shallow bowl filled with oranges, grapes, and nuts is surrounded by a short, flaring glass, a glass decanter, a lemon, and more nuts arranged along a wooden tabletop in this horizontal still life painting. The objects nearly fill the composition, and the table extends off both sides. The three oranges are pale, with the one at the center nearly yellow, and a stem of dark green leaves lies across the top. A bunch of shriveled grapes, like raisins still on the vine, lies across the almonds and other nuts, all in their shells, in the bowl. The outside of the bowl is white, and it has a gently scalloped rim. A lemon sits to our left of the bowl of fruit, and behind it, the glass decanter has a teardrop-shaped glass stopper. Light coming from the front and our left makes the peachy liquid glow. To our right are four whole walnuts in their shells, with a few grapes hanging from the bowl. Behind the walnuts, a long stemmed, flaring, clear glass is almost filled with the peach-colored liquid. The background is deeply shadowed at the upper left, lightening slightly to elephant gray toward the lower right. The artist inscribed the painting as if he had written his name, date, and location on the front edge of the table, near the lower right corner: “Raphaelle Peale Aug: 5th 1814 Philad:”

A Dessert

Raphaelle Peale

1814

Oil on wood Accession ID 1999.44.1

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M69

The Writer

Mary Bradish Titcomb

c. 1912

Oil on canvas Accession ID 2023.135.1

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M70