Near Greycourt, New York
Worthington Whittredge, American, 1820 - 1910
about 1872-1875
Oil on canvas
Overall: 19 1/8 × 16 1/8 in. (48.6 × 41 cm)
Frame: 25 1/2 × 22 1/2 in. (64.8 × 57.1 cm)
Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth: Gift of Robert and Mary Schmid
P.989.5
Geography
Place Made: United States, North America
Period
19th century
Object Name
Painting
Research Area
Painting
Not on view
Inscriptions
Signed, lower right: W. Whittredge
Label
Farm labor appears effortless in this painting as a horseman drives cattle across a sunlit field. Farmers have always faced incredible economic precarity and long, hard work, but this painting uses nostalgia to promote a myth that the past was a simpler time. Ignoring the realities of farm work encouraged deeper economic stratification between social classes. The wealthy Manhattan merchant who owned this painting never knew the true toils of agricultural labor.
Before he studied in Düsseldorf with Emanuel Leutze, Worthington Whittredge began his career in Cincinnati, where he developed a close friendship with Robert Duncanson. Compare this painting with Duncanson’s Stone Bridge on view in this exhibition.
From the 2022 exhibition Historical Imaginary, curated by Michael Hartman, Jonathan Little Cohen Associate Curator of American Art
Course History
Film Studies 42.23, Travelers and Tourists, Heidi Denzel, Spring 2023
History 63.02, Reading Artifacts: The Material Culture of Science, Whitney Barlow Robles, Spring 2023
Exhibition History
American Viewpoints: Painting and Sculpture from the Hood Museum of Art, Timken Museum of Art, San Diego, California, May 5-August 31, 2003.
Historical Imaginary, Luise and Morton Kaish Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, December 17, 2022-November 12, 2023.
Israel Sack Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, May 7, 2002-February 28, 2003.
Publication History
Barbara J. MacAdam, American Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Muesum of Art, Hanover: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 2007, p. 52, no. 31.
Provenance
Date unknown, in the collection of the donor's great-grandmother Mary Ely Miller (Mrs. Charles) (1849-1929), West 37th Street, New York, New York; probably 1929-1951, in the collection of the donor's grandmother, Laura Miller Isham; 1951-1989, in the collection of Mary C. Schmid; 1989 given to Dartmouth College by Robert and Mary C. Schmid, Hanover, New Hampshire.
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