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A Study of Trap Rock (Buttermilk Falls)

1863
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 761
"The most elaborately literal study from nature I ever made," Hill wrote of this work. "It was done in July and o[c]cupied me nearly every afternoon in the month while our civil war was going on." Hill was a member of the American Pre-Raphaelites, a band of artists who were followers of the English critic John Ruskin and the British Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Advocating "truth to nature," the group executed precise landscapes exclusively out of doors. Hill’s inclusion at the lower right of a portrait of Thomas Charles Farrer, the American Pre-Raphaelites’ founder, testifies to the group’s commitment to sketching in nature.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: A Study of Trap Rock (Buttermilk Falls)
  • Artist: John Henry Hill (American, West Nyack, New York 1839–1922)
  • Date: 1863
  • Culture: American
  • Medium: Oil on canvas
  • Dimensions: 20 x 24 in. (50.8 x 61 cm)
  • Credit Line: Gift of the artist, 1882
  • Object Number: 82.9.7
  • Curatorial Department: The American Wing

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