Floor plan

Style galleriesThe American Gilded Age

The American Gilded Age

The painting depicts a rural landscape at sunset or sunrise. The horizon is slightly above the center, showing distant pale-pink and purple mountains against the sky. Closest to us is an area with dark green bushes and vegetation, leading to a lighter green field surrounded by green-and-brown trees. The palette is warm and earthy, with greens and browns in the bottom transitioning to purples and pinks in the distance. The sky is a pale-yellow color that fades into light blue towards the top left corner, and faint yellow and gray clouds drift across it.
Louis Eilshemius
"King Lear," Act I, Scene I, by Edwin Austin Abbey, 1898
The image shows a street scene from an elevated viewpoint. A horse-drawn carriage is seen moving on a wet road, reflecting light. Pedestrians with umbrellas populate the avenue. The road is visibly marked with rainwater. The skyline displays detailed architectural features like church spires and towers. The painting is done in fine, linear brushstrokes highlighting movement and atmosphere. The grayscale palette emphasizes the rainy urban setting. Wisps of steam or smoke are visible. The intricate line work and shading depict a textured, busy street under an overcast sky.
Sand Dunes, Harlech, North Wales, by George Elbert Burr, 1899

The works in this room are listed below.

Works in this room

Painting and design in the United States from the Civil War to 1910.

First room, north wall

  1. The painting depicts a rural landscape at sunset or sunrise. The horizon is slightly above the center, showing distant pale-pink and purple mountains against the sky. Closest to us is an area with dark green bushes and vegetation, leading to a lighter green field surrounded by green-and-brown trees. The palette is warm and earthy, with greens and browns in the bottom transitioning to purples and pinks in the distance. The sky is a pale-yellow color that fades into light blue towards the top left corner, and faint yellow and gray clouds drift across it.
    Peaceful ValleyAlexander Helwig Wyant, c. 1872Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington
  2. Louis Eilshemius
    Samoan SceneLouis M. Eilshemius, 1908Courtesy of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution

First room, south wall

  1. "King Lear," Act I, Scene I, by Edwin Austin Abbey, 1898
    "King Lear," Act I, Scene IEdwin Austin Abbey, 1898Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
  2. The image shows a street scene from an elevated viewpoint. A horse-drawn carriage is seen moving on a wet road, reflecting light. Pedestrians with umbrellas populate the avenue. The road is visibly marked with rainwater. The skyline displays detailed architectural features like church spires and towers. The painting is done in fine, linear brushstrokes highlighting movement and atmosphere. The grayscale palette emphasizes the rainy urban setting. Wisps of steam or smoke are visible. The intricate line work and shading depict a textured, busy street under an overcast sky.
    Rainy Day, BostonChilde Hassam, 1886Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington
  3. Sand Dunes, Harlech, North Wales, by George Elbert Burr, 1899
    Sand Dunes, Harlech, North WalesGeorge Elbert Burr, 1899Courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum

Second room, south wall

  1. Claire Campbell, by Édouard Manet, 1876
    Claire CampbellÉdouard Manet, 1876Courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art
  2. DRAPERY STUDY
    Drapery StudyFrancis Augustus Lathrop, ca. 1895Courtesy of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
  3. Edward Guthrie Kennedy, by William Merritt Chase, ca. 1895
    Edward Guthrie KennedyWilliam Merritt Chase, ca. 1895Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
  4. A work made of brush and black gray wash heightened with white gouache over graphite, on cream laminate board.
    "As They Threw their Animals Back upon their Haunches," illustration for An Arabian Day and Night, in Harper's New Monthly MagazineFrederic Remington, n.d.Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago

Second room, north wall

  1. Shown from the knees up, a pale-skinned woman stands close to us with a red schoolhouse in the distance under a sunset sky in this vertical painting. The woman’s body faces us, but she turns her head to look off to the left with light brown eyes. She has a short, straight nose, full pink lips, and a round face. Her blond hair is pulled up under a round white hat layered with ruffles, which lies like a pancake over the top of her head. Her white dress is vertically striped with thin rust-red lines and has a long-sleeved, tight-fitting bodice and a long skirt. A dark gray belt is cinched around her narrow waist, and she wears a black, lacy ruffle around her neck. The woman’s arms hang by her sides, and she holds two paperback-sized books in her left hand, to our right. An earth-brown lawn stretches back to the schoolhouse, which has crimson-red walls, a chimney, and a dark gray roof. Three forms painted with a few streaks of dark or light gray or topaz blue suggest people standing near the door of the schoolhouse. Trees and a grassy lawn beyond the building are loosely painted with blended strokes. The sky is shaded pale lemon yellow and light peach with touches of rose pink. The artist signed and dated the lower right corner, “HOMER 1873.”
    The Red School HouseWinslow Homer, 1873Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington
  2. FIGURES
    FiguresRobert Frederick Blum, 1881Courtesy of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
  3. The Bridge at Grez [recto], by Childe Hassam, 1904
    The Bridge at Grez [recto]Childe Hassam, 1904Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington
  4. Christ, by Kenyon Cox, 1905
    ChristKenyon Cox, 1905Courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art

Third room, north wall

  1. From under an elevated train track, we look at a cluster of people hammering and working on the far side of a wooden fence, all against a silvery-blue building that fills most of the background in this horizontal painting. The scene is loosely painted mostly in tones of hazy and saturated blues, so many of the details are indistinct. About a quarter of the way in from the right edge of the composition, a thin iron column holds up the train platform. The column nearly spans the height of the painting, and the track it supports runs across the top edge of the canvas. At the foot of the column, along the bottom edge, are two parallel tracks embedded in an area otherwise painted with short, diagonal strokes in topaz blue, olive green, and straw yellow. Just beyond the tracks, the split-rail wooden fence runs across most of the painting, though there is an opening at the left edge of the canvas. A man sits with his back to us on the railing to our right of center. He wears a dark cap, a lapis-blue shirt, and navy-blue pants. Several men work on or near a mound-shaped form, perhaps a piece of machinery, just beyond the fence, near the center of the painting. One man holds a hammer high overhead while another reaches down or strikes the mound with his feet planted wide. More people work together to our left, and a man to our right stands near a crane. The people and these areas are painted with broad strokes and touches of cobalt blue, charcoal gray, khaki brown, and a few swipes of shell pink and bright white. A puff of white smoke billows up behind the central group, before the land drops precipitously away. The chasm is painted with shimmering tones of aquamarine and cerulean blue. A sky-blue, rectangular building perches at the far edge. A few windows are outlined in royal blue to our left but the rest of the building is loosely painted with long, vertical strokes so no architectural details can be made out. Behind this structure are more city buildings, suggested with strokes of muted rust red, parchment and bright white, and cobalt blue. The ice-blue sky fills the band between the top of the buildings and the train track running overhead. The artist signed his name near the lower left corner, “BELLOWS.”
    Blue MorningGeorge Bellows, 1909Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington
  2. Capri, by William Stanley Haseltine, 1869
    CapriWilliam Stanley Haseltine, 1869Courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art
  3. Repose, by John White Alexander, 1895
    ReposeJohn White Alexander, 1895Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art