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The American Gilded Age

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

67 works · hang 7228 ·

The rooms are imagined; every work on their walls is real.

Walk this roomRehang this room

First room, north wall

  1. Christ, by Kenyon Cox, 1905
    ChristKenyon Cox, 1905Courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art
  2. A six-story, narrow building stands alone in an otherwise unoccupied lot under the deck of a high bridge, with a river and cityscape in the background in this horizontal painting. Dozens of people, small in scale, are each painted with a few swipes of black and some with peach-colored faces. They gather at the foot of the building and around a fire to our left, near the lower left corner of the composition. The fire is painted with a dash of orange, a few touches of canary yellow, and a smudge of gray smoke. Several more people stand and sit against the building, which has a streetlamp near its entrance. The back end of the building angles away from us to our right, so we see the narrow, front entrance side to our left. Each of the six floors of the building has two windows with fire escape ladders on the narrow side we can see. Some strokes in red and white on the lower levels of the long, flat side of the building suggest signs or posters. The top story glows a warm sienna brown in sunlight, while the rest of the building and the scene below are in shadow. More people walk along a grayish-violet fence that encloses the lot beyond the building. The ground is painted thickly with slate gray, pale, sage green, and one smear of white to suggest snow. To our right and a short distance from us, a white horse pulls a carriage near the foot of the bridge. The ivory-white, concrete piling rises up and off the right edge of the canvas and supports the deck of the bridge above. Only a sliver of the brick-red underside of the bridge is visible, skimming the top edge of the painting in the upper right corner. Two twiggy, barren trees grow up beyond the muted purple fence, and the landscape beyond is bright in the sunlight. A terracotta-orange building rises along the left edge of the painting, with the area between it and the lot under the bridge filled with thickly painted patches of butter yellow, amethyst purple, and sage green. Beyond that, an ice-blue river flows across the composition. The shore beyond is lined with patches of beige and tan paint that could be buildings. A black tugboat puffs bright white smoke in the river. The sky above is frosty white. The artist signed the work with dark blue in the lower left corner of the painting, “Geo Bellows.”
    The Lone TenementGeorge Bellows, 1909Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington

First room, south wall

  1. A Rose, by Thomas Anshutz, 1907
    A RoseThomas Anshutz, 1907Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
  2. DRAPERY STUDY
    Drapery StudyFrancis Augustus Lathrop, ca. 1895Courtesy of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
  3. 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
  4. VIEW OF VENICE, ITALY
    View of Venice, ItalyRobert Frederick Blum, 1880Courtesy of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Second room, south wall

  1. Edward Guthrie Kennedy, by William Merritt Chase, ca. 1895
    Edward Guthrie KennedyWilliam Merritt Chase, ca. 1895Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
  2. STUDY OF DRAPERY
    Study of DraperyFrancis Augustus Lathrop, ca. 1895Courtesy of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
  3. Pale watercolor drawing of young dancer in long sheer dress.
    Green and Blue: The DancerJames McNeill Whistler, c. 1893Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago
  4. FISHERMEN BEACHING A DORY, CULLERCOATS, ENGLAND
    Fishermen Beaching a Dory, Cullercoats, EnglandWinslow Homer, 1881Courtesy of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Second room, north wall

  1. OTTER CLIFFS
    Otter CliffsArnold William Brunner, 1879–80Courtesy of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
  2. A young man with a peachy, ruddy complexion lies on his stomach in a wooden rowboat on a river, reaching forward to grasp the horn of a stag almost completely submerged in the rippling water with one hand. On the opposite riverbank, gold, rust, and scarlet-red trees span the width of this horizontal painting. The boy’s arms straddle the stern of the boat so one holds the antler with his right hand, closer to us, while the other clutches a rope with a loop at the end. He turns his face, mouth agape and cheeks flushed, over his right shoulder to look to our left, at a dog swimming toward the boat. The dog has white and caramel-brown markings, with dark brown ears. The boy wears earth-brown clothing and the front of his wide-brimmed hat is pushed up to reveal dark eyes and sable-brown bangs and brows. The stag and dog are between us and the boat, and are surrounded by thick brushstrokes of parchment white to create ripples in the forest-green water. Only the open muzzle, part of the eye, and the tips of the stag’s antlers are above the water’s surface. To our right, a bare, fallen tree lies along the far riverbank parallel to the boat. The boat and water fill the lower half of the scene and the autumn trees fill the upper half. The artist has signed and dated the painting in the lower right, “Winslow Homer 1892.”
    Hound and HunterWinslow Homer, 1892Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington
  3. We Both Must Fade (Mrs. Fithian), by Lilly Martin Spencer, 1869
    We Both Must Fade (Mrs. Fithian)Lilly Martin Spencer, 1869Courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum

Third room, north wall

  1. Capri, by William Stanley Haseltine, 1869
    CapriWilliam Stanley Haseltine, 1869Courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art
  2. Artist: Thomas Cowperthwaite Eakins, Sitter: Talcott Williams, Current owner: National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
    Talcott WilliamsThomas Eakins, c. 1889Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
  3. Diving Cormorant, by Otto H. Bacher, 1900
    Diving CormorantOtto H. Bacher, 1900Courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art