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The American Gilded Age

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

67 works · hang 84 ·

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

Walk this roomRehang this room

First room, north wall

  1. A woman with smooth, pale skin and wearing a hat, long dress, and gloves, stands holding a bunch of pumpkin-orange leaves against a background of trees painted with touches of rust orange and pine green in this vertical painting. The woman tips her head back slightly to look at us with dark eyes under arched eyebrows. Her cheeks are flushed and her coral-pink lips closed. Her round black hat perches on the back of her head and she has an inky black, long-sleeved, hip-length jacket with bronze trim at the shoulders, cuffs, and down the front. A gauzy bow is tied at her neck. Her left elbow, on our right, is bent and she holds up her tan-colored, ruffled skirt with a white-gloved hand. The raised skirt exposes sky-blue lining and white, ruffled flounces at her feet. Her right arm, on our left, hangs at her side and holds the handle of a basket. Deep marigold-orange leaves cascade out of the basket. One black shoe peeks out from under her long skirt. She stands on a hill carpeted with crimson-red, tawny-brown, golden yellow, and forest-green leaves. The space behind her is filled with touches and dabs of red, orange, brown, black, and tan.
    AutumnWinslow Homer, 1877Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington
  2. 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
  3. Landscape, by George Inness, 1888
    LandscapeGeorge Inness, 1888Courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art
  4. FIGURES
    FiguresRobert Frederick Blum, 1881Courtesy of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

First room, south wall

  1. 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
  2. A work made of pastel and black chalk on brown wove paper with fibrous inclusions.
    Corte del ParadisoJames McNeill Whistler, 1880Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago
  3. VIEW OF VENICE, ITALY
    View of Venice, ItalyRobert Frederick Blum, 1880Courtesy of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
  4. 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

Second 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. BALCONY
    BalconyRobert Frederick Blum, 1880Courtesy of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
  3. Boy with Anchor, by Winslow Homer, 1873
    Boy with AnchorWinslow Homer, 1873Courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art

Second room, north wall

  1. Leaping Trout, by Winslow Homer, 1889
    Leaping TroutWinslow Homer, 1889Courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art
  2. Twigs of a magnolia tree with light green, glossy leaves and three cream-white blossoms lie on a sapphire-blue cloth in this horizontal still life painting. Brightly lit from our left, the blossoms and leaves nearly fill the composition, and the cut ends lie on the fabric to our right. The blue fabric cascades from the upper left and across the table or ledge. The three flowers are in various stages of bloom. The tightest bud is to our left, overlapped by a stem and the tender, unfurling leaves of a branch. The blossom next to it, at the center, is starting to open. The petals of the third blossom, to our right, splay open around the flower’s oval-shaped stamen. Light glints off the waxy leaves surrounding the flowers. The tawny-brown underside of one leaf is visible where it turns over, near the cut ends of the branches. Light shimmering on the fabric darkens from bright blue to our right, to deep royal blue in the shadows to the upper left, suggesting the fabric is velvet. The background is streaked with tan and pine green behind the fabric, and becomes nearly black in the shadows of the upper right corner and along the bottom edge. The artist signed the lower right corner, "MJ. Heade."
    Giant Magnolias on a Blue Velvet ClothMartin Johnson Heade, c. 1890Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington
  3. Diving Cormorant, by Otto H. Bacher, 1900
    Diving CormorantOtto H. Bacher, 1900Courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art

Third room, north wall

  1. DRAPERY STUDY
    Drapery StudyFrancis Augustus Lathrop, ca. 1895Courtesy of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
  2. 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