View of a Manor House on the Harlem River, New York

William Groombridge's View of a Manor House on the Harlem River appears to be a view looking north or northeast from the region near the narrow tip of upper Manhattan Island known as Harlem Heights. The late-afternoon, early autumnal scene presents a distant cluster of houses and barns, with a church steeple on the far bank of the placid water that encircles northern Manhattan on three sides. The steep hill in the foreground, populated by several cows and a shepherd, gives way to farther hills on which sheep graze. Above the low horizon, the fair-weather sky is tinted pink at lower left by the unseen setting sun. Groombridge's placid view emphasizes the bucolic nature of the area, which remained farmland until well into the nineteenth century.

View of a Manor House on the Harlem River probably is one of the first paintings made by Groombridge after he arrived in America from his native England, and it is his only known view of New York. The house at far left, long thought to be the 1765 Morris-Jumel Mansion, where the painting was discovered in the early twentieth century, has not been identified, but several such substantial homes graced the largely agricultural neighborhood at the turn of the nineteenth century. If the painting was not commissioned by a local estate owner, it may have been made in the hope of attracting such a patron for the newly arrived artist. The subject held a varied appeal. At the close of the eighteenth century Harlem Heights was still associated with the Americans' important victory over the British during a Revolutionary War battle led by General George Washington, for whom the Morris-Jumel mansion served as headquarters. Moreover, the setting's gently rural character—neither congested city nor desolate wilderness—was suited to the conventions of picturesque landscape painting brought to America by Groombridge and the other English-trained contemporaries who were among the first to paint American scenery. That these artists did not feel constrained to topographical accuracy is suggested by an account of the painting's creation by artist and chronicler William Dunlap (1766–1839) in his early history of American artists: "'What shall I do for a foreground?' said he [Groombridge]; 'I will dash a watermelon to pieces, and make a foreground of it.' No bad thought."1

1. William Dunlap, A History of the Rise and Progress of the Arts of Design in the United States (1834; reprint ed. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1969), vol. 2, pt. 1., 47–8.

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Attitudes Toward Nature, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, September 30, 1995–April 21, 1996.

Selected Works from the Collections: Two Hundred Years of American Art, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, April 12–August 27, 1997.

Selections from the Permanent Collection: Two Centuries of American Art, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, March 10–July 1, 2001.

Culture Revisited: Samuel F. B. Morse's 'Gallery of the Louvre,' Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, July 12–November 3, 2002.

The People Work: American Perspectives, 1840–1940 (Le Travail à l'oeuvre: les artistes américains 1840–1940), Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venues: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, March 15–May 25, 2003; Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, June 8–August 17, 2003. [exh. cat.]

Manifest Destiny, Manifest Responsibility: Environmentalism and the Art of the American Landscape. Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago, Illinois and Loyola University Museum of Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizers). Venue: Loyola University Museum of Art, May 17–August 10, 2008. [exh. cat.]

Continental Shift: Nineteenth Century American and Australian Landscape Painting, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, Australia and Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizers). Venue: Art Gallery of Western Australia, July 30, 2016–February 5, 2017. [exh. cat.]

Not as the Songs of other Lands: 19th century Australian and American Landscape Painting, Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne, Australia and Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizers). Venue: Ian Potter Museum of Art, March 14–June 11, 2017.

Comstock, Helen. "History in Houses: The Morris-Jumel Mansion in New York." The Magazine Antiques 109 (March 1951): 214–19. Fig. 5, p. 216 (black & white as Landscape).

Henke, George. “Groombridge Painting.” Washington Headquarters Association Newsletter 1:6 (Fall-Winter 1978): 5 (as Scene on the Harlem River).

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Nygren, Edward J. and Bruce Robertson. Views and Visions: American Landscape before 1830. (exh. cat., Corcoran Gallery of Art). Washington, D.C.: The Corcoran Gallery of Art, 1986. Text p. 262; ill. p. 263 (black & white).

Atkinson, D. Scott et al. A Proud Heritage: Two Centuries of American Art. Edited by Terry A. Neff. (exh. cat., Terra Museum of American Art). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 1987. Pl. T-3, p. 112 (color).

View of a Manor House on the Harlem River, New York, William Groombridge. Collection Cameo sheet, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, January 1989. Ill. (black & white).

Bourguignon, Katherine M. and Elizabeth Kennedy. The People Work: American Perspectives, 1840–1940. (exh. cat., Terra Museum of American Art). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2003. Text pp. 16, 28 (checklist); ill. p. 31 (color).

Bourguignon, Katherine M. and Elizabeth Kennedy. Le Travail à l'oeuvre: les artistes américains, 1840–1940. (exh. cat., Terra Museum of American Art). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2003. Text pp. 16, 28 (checklist); ill. p. 31 (color).

Brownlee, Peter John. Manifest Destiny / Manifest Responsibility: Environmentalism and the Art of the American Landscape. (exh. cat., Loyola University Museum of Art, Chicago, Illinois). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for American Art and Loyola University Museum of Art, 2008. Text pp. 25, 35 (checklist); Ill. p. 22 (color).

Bourguignon, Katherine M., and Peter John Brownlee, eds. Conversations with the Collection: A Terra Foundation Collection Handbook. Chicago: Terra Foundation for American Art, 2018. Text pp. 16-19; fig. 1, p. 17 (color).