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Dated Web objects 1840-1879

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Last item added: 2007.1 Spencer, Home of the Red White and Blue

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Metadata Embedded, 2017
Jonathan Adams Bartlett
Date: c. 1840
Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection
Object number: 1992.14
Text Entries: Roughly contemporary, these two portraits each depict a member of the artist's family. Jonathan Adams Bartlett's "likeness" of his sister, Harriet, is exceptional in its inclusion of books-both in her hand and stacked on the table-a nod to the intellectual realm most associated with men. Though fashionably rouged and coifed, Harriet is nevertheless portrayed as actively seeking knowledge: her over-the-shoulder look at the viewer seems to indicate an interruption of activity-a moment captured-additionally emphasized by the tassel caught in mid-swing behind her. Likewise, Thomas Sully portrays his daughter Blanch with a fashionable hairstyle and headdress, which serve in effect to "crown" her head. Sully executed this canvas soon after returning home from painting the commissioned portrait of the young Queen Victoria. Interestingly, the twenty-one year old Blanch accompanied her father to London and often modeled in the queen's stead between sessions. The painting of Blanch serves as a visual poem to her intelligence, beauty and charm. Like Bartlett, Sully relied on visual symbols to convey an inner truth of individual character.
Metadata Embedded, 2019
Joseph Whiting Stock
Date: 1842
Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection
Object number: 1992.132
Text Entries: Joseph Whiting Stock, the prolific itinerant New England painter, traveled in the region using a special wheelchair since an early childhood accident left him crippled. Stock learned to paint primarily through art manuals and became best known for his full-length portraits of children. His journals indicate that he earned an income of $6000 for 913 works of art, an exceptional amount for this period. Stock painted Captain J. L. Gardner's Son at Age 2- ½ during a sixteen-week stay in Bristol, Rhode Island where, according to Stock, "business was very dull." This fine portrait demonstrates Stock's style of heavily modeled facial features with parted lips and large eyes and lavish environment emphasized here by the deep red drapery, patterned carpet and fine furniture.
Metadata Embedded, 2019
William Sidney Mount
Date: 1844
Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection
Object number: 1992.52
Text Entries: (modified anniversary publication entry) Hailed by his contemporary critics as an original American artist, William Sidney Mount studied briefly at the National Academy of Design after a short apprenticeship as a sign maker. An ambitious painter, inventor, and entrepreneur who worked both in New York City and in rural Long Island Sound, Mount carefully developed his image as a homegrown talent. His paintings of everyday life rejected the high-culture demand for grand historical scenes made popular by European trends; his subsequent refusal to travel abroad for further study underscored Mount's commitment to the American scene. By the late 1830s one New York critic could rave that Mount was "a vigorous, untaught, untutored plant, who borrows from no one, imitates no one." Mount's familiar subjects of agrarian labor, childhood innocence, and Yankee ingenuity spoke directly to the American experience. Yet, despite their innocent veneer, Mount's works often deliver a deeper message. The Trap Sprung, for example, seems to celebrate the excitement of youthful anticipation, as two country boys rush to a rabbit trap to collect their prize. Painted in the years following the Panic of 1837, the informed contemporary viewer would not have failed to recognize Mount's veiled political message. In the aftermath of the economic crisis, the conservative Whig party sought to blame the populist-based Democrats for the nation's troubles, and thereby convert (or trap) the large Democratic electorate base to the Whig cause. Mount's use of a rabbit trap draws on the familiar association of "rabbit," or "hare," with the Whigs in popular joke books and suggests that the victim (the Democrat) was lured unsuspectingly by the trapper's (the Whig) unsophisticated, though effective, trapping technology. Alternatively known as The Dead Fall in reference to a type of trap that instantly kills its prey, Mount's painting would have had resonance as an image of rural life with a political message.
metadata embedded, 2020
William Matthew Prior
Date: 1848
Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection
Object number: 1992.122
Text Entries: William Matthew Prior, artist and entrepreneur from Bath, Maine, intentionally painted in a flattened style. He advertised in the 1831 Maine Inquirer: "Persons wishing for a flat picture can have a likeness without shade or shadow at one quarter price." Noted for his versatility of style, Prior succeeded in obtaining numerous commissions for flat pictures due to their affordability and quick execution. Mary Cary and Susan Elizabeth Johnson from Provincetown, Massachusetts are painted in Prior's "flat" style. Broad, confident brushwork, lively surface pattern of the dresses as well as the encircling position of the girls' arms reveal his expert understanding of paint, design and composition. In addition to capturing the physical resemblance of the two girls, Prior used conventions to suggest a close familial relationship, such as the shared book, matching costumes and their proximity to one another.
Metadata embedded, 2021
Henry Walton
Date: c. 1850
Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection
Object number: 1992.140
Text Entries: Henry Walton earned his living by painting portraits, primarily watercolors, although he is most famous for his 1836-1850 lithographs of New York townscapes. Walton, born in New York, made his way to California in 1851 with a gold rush party, but left for the Midwest in 1857 to settle in Michigan. This itinerant artist masterfully rendered forms, color and texture with convincing realism-indicative of the wide variety of styles regarded as American folk art. Walton's attention to specificity and detail was a result of his concerted effort to master technique through practice both as a painter and printmaker.
Metadata Embedded, 2018
William S. Jewett
Date: 1850
Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection
Object number: 1999.79
Text Entries: William S. Jewett, the first artist established in California, depicted pioneer, artist, and naturalist Andrew Jackson Grayson with his family at the moment they first caught sight of the Sacramento valley. Posing the figures as a holy family, Jewett also likened the California landscape to the Promised Land, a metaphor for westward expansion.
The County Election
George Caleb Bingham
Date: 1854
Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection
Object number: 1999.133
Text Entries: Rusk, Fern Helen. <i>George Caleb Bingham: The Missouri Artist</i>. Jefferson City, Missouri: The Hugh Stephens Company, 1917, p. 59.<br><br> Bender, J. H. "Catalogue of Engravings and Lithographs after George C. Bingham." <i>The Print Collector's Quarterly</i> 27 (February 1940): 106–108. No. 2, p. 106.<br><br> McDermott, John Francis. <i>George Caleb Bingham: River Portraitist</i>. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1959. Text pp. 93–97; pl. 43, p. 239 (black & white).<br><br> Bloch, E. Maurice. <i>George Caleb Bingham: A Catalog Raisonné</i>. Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1967. No. P9, pp. 220–21.<br><br> Rash, Nancy. <i>The Paintings and Politics of George Caleb Bingham</i>. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1991. Text pp. 136-40, 220; fig. 45, p. 137 (black & white).<br><br> Shapiro, Michael Edward, Barbara Groseclose, Elizabeth Johns, Paul C. Nagel and John Wilmerding. <i>George Caleb Bingham</i>. (exh. cat., The St. Louis Art Museum). St. Louis, Missouri and New York: The St. Louis Art Museum in association with Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers, 1990. Text pp. 92–94, 96-103; ill. p. 96 (black & white).
Metadata Embedded, 2019
William Matthew Prior
Date: by 1856
Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection
Object number: 1992.123
Text Entries: Brothers-in-law and portrait painters, William Matthew Prior and Sturtevant J. Hamblin lived together with their families in Boston by 1841. Many portraits have been attributed to both artists because they worked in a generally similar style and in close association in their shared workshop. Artists depicted toys to distinguish the gender of the child since boys and girls often wore the same style of clothes. Usually toys included in portraits of boys were associated with the world of adult males, for example, whips, wagons, or bow and arrows as shown in this portrait. Popularity of manufactured and handmade toys increased in the mid-nineteenth century reflecting the acceptance of child's play-previously considered idle activity.
Metadata Embedded, 2019
Fitz Henry Lane
Date: 1856
Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection
Object number: 1993.21
Text Entries: Hemphill, Christopher. "Daniel Terra and His Collection." <i>Town & Country</i> (February 1984): 196.<br><br> Southgate, M. Therese. "The Cover." <i>The Journal of the American Medical Association</i> 272:7 (August 17, 1994). Text p. 500; ill. cover (color).<br><br> <i>The Journal of the American Medical Association Japan</i> (December 12, 1994): cover. Ill. cover (color).<br><br> <i>Gloucester Harbor, </i>Fitz Hugh Lane. Collection Cameo sheet, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, August 1995. Ill. (black & white).<br><br> Cartwright, Derrick R. <i>Waves and Waterways: American Perspectives, 1850–1900</i>. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2000. Text pp. 16, 27 (checklist); fig. 6, p. 16 (black & white).<br><br> Cartwright, Derrick R. <i>Rivières et rivages: les artistes américains, 1850–1900</i>. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2000. Text pp. 16, 27 (checklist); fig. 6, p. 16 (black & white).<br><br> Bourguignon, Katherine M. and Elizabeth Kennedy. <i>The People Work: American Perspectives, 1840–1940</i>. (exh. cat., Terra Museum of American Art). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2003. Text pp. 17, 28 (checklist); ill. p. 34 (color).<br><br> Bourguignon, Katherine M. and Elizabeth Kennedy. <i>Le Travail à l'oeuvre: les artistes américains, 1840–1940</i>. (exh. cat., Terra Museum of American Art). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2003. Text pp. 17, 28 (checklist); ill. p. 34 (color).<br><br> Goldin, Marco. <i>America! Storie di pittura dal Nuovo Mondo.</i> (exh. cat., Museo di Santa Giulia, Brescia, Italy). Treviso, Italy: Linea d'ombra Libri, 2007. text p. 480 (checklist) Ill. cat. no. 34 pp. 111 (color), 480 (black & white as <i>Il porto di Gloucester</i>).<br><br> “Gloucester Harbor, 1856 (inv. 75).” Fitz Henry Lane Online. Cape Ann Museum. Accessed January 27, 2016. <a href="http://fitzhenrylaneonline.org/catalog/entry.php?id=75" target="_blank"> http://fitzhenrylaneonline.org/catalog/entry.php?id=75</a>. Cat. no. 75.<br><br>
Rail Shooting
William Tylee Ranney
Date: c. 1856–59
Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection
Object number: 1992.124
Text Entries: "Americans to 1875." <i>Art Digest</i> (April 15, 1942): 18. Text p. 18; ill. p. 18.<br><br> Grubar, Francis. <i>William Ranney: Painter of the Early West</i>. (exh. cat., The Corcoran Gallery of Art). Washington, D.C.: The Corcoran Gallery of Art, 1962. No. 85, p. 45. <br><br> Atkinson, D. Scott et al. <i>A Proud Heritage: Two Centuries of American Art</i>. Edited by Terry A. Neff. (exh. cat., Terra Museum of American Art). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 1987. Pl. T-19, p. 128 (color).<br><br> Thistlewaite, Mark. <i>William Tylee Ranney East of the Mississippi</i>. (exh. cat., Brandywine River Museum). Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania: Brandywine River Museum, 1991. Text pp. 35, 82 (checklist); ill. p. 34 (black & white).<br><br> Luhrs, Kathleen, ed. <i>Forging an American Identity: The Art of William Ranney with a Catalogue of his Works</i>. (exh, cat. Buffalo Bill Historical Center). Cody, Wyoming: Buffalo Bill Historical Center, 2006. Text pp. 167–168; ill. p. 169 (color).<br><br> Neset, Arne. <i>Arcadian Waters and Wanton Seas: The Iconology of Waterscapes in Nineteenth-Century Transatlantic Culture</i>. New York, New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 2009. Text p. 147; Ill. p. 148 (black & white).
Metadata Embedded, 2019   Photo
John Frederick Kensett
Date: c. 1857
Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection
Object number: 1992.42
Text Entries: <i>Executor’s Sale: The Collection of Over Five Hundred Paintings and Studies by the Late John F. Kensett…</i> (exh. cat, National Academy of Design, New York, New York). New York, New York: National Academy of Design, 1873. Possibly text p. 33 (cat. no. 559).<br><br> “Picture and Book Sales: The Kensett Art Sale.” <i>The New-York Tribune</i>, March 29, 1873, p. 7. Text p. 7.<br><br> Atkinson, D. Scott et al. <i>A Proud Heritage: Two Centuries of American Art</i>. Edited by Terry A. Neff. (exh. cat., Terra Museum of American Art). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 1987. Pl. T-21, p. 130 (color).<br><br> Collection Cameo, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, February 1998. Ill. (black & white). <br><br> Little, Carl. <i>Paintings of New England</i>. Camden, Maine: Down East Books, 1996. Ill. p. 46 (color).<br><br> <i>Almy Pond, Newport</i>, John Frederick Kensett. Collection Cameo sheet, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, February 1998. Ill. (black & white). <br><br> Cartwright, Derrick R. <i>Waves and Waterways: American Perspectives, 1850–1900</i>. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2000. Text p. 27 (checklist); ill. p. 29 (color).<br><br> Cartwright, Derrick R. <i>Rivières et rivages: les artistes américains, 1850–1900</i>. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2000. Text p. 27 (checklist); ill. p. 29 (color).<br><br> Bourguignon, Katherine M. and Elizabeth Kennedy. <i>An American Point of View: The Daniel J. Terra Collection</i>. Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2002. Text p. 64; ill. p. 64 (black & white).<br><br> Bourguignon, Katherine M. and Elizabeth Kennedy. <i>Un regard transatlantique. La collection d'art américain de Daniel J. Terra</i>. Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2002. Text p. 64; ill. p. 64 (black & white).<br><br> Hauptman, William. <i>Peindre l’Amérique. Le artistes du Nouveau Monde 1830-1900 [Painting America, artists of the New World (1830–1900)].</i> trans. Jeanne Bouniort. (exh. cat., Fondation de l’Hermitage, Lausanne, Switzerland). Lausanne: La Bibliothèque des Arts, 2014. Cat. 9, ill. p. 41 (color); Text pp. 40, 41, 178 (checklist).<br><br> Bourguignon, Katherine M., and Peter John Brownlee, eds. <i>Conversations with the Collection: A Terra Foundation Collection Handbook.</i> Chicago: Terra Foundation for American Art, 2018. Text p. 60; ill. p. 60 (color).<br><br>
Metadata Embedded, 2020
Eugene Benson
Date: 1858
Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Art Acquisition Endowment Fund
Object number: 1999.6
Text Entries: <i>The Magazine Antiques</i> 153:5 (May 1998): 658. Ill. p. 658 (color).<br><br> Brownlee, Peter John, Sarah Burns, Diane Dillon, Daniel Greene, and Scott Manning Stevens.<i>Home Front: Daily Life in the Civil War North with a foreword by Adam Goodheart.</i>(exh. Cat., Terra Foundation for American Art and Newberry Library). Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013. Text pp. 10, 48-50, 51, 159 (checklist); Fig. 26, p. 49 (color).<br><br>