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Summer Day on Conesus Lake

1870
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 774
The smallest and westernmost of the eleven Finger Lakes of New York State, Conesus Lake was a popular summer resort visited frequently by Kensett to socialize with Robert M. Olyphant, one of his ardent friends and patrons, who owned a home there. The artist's portrayal of the scene, a counterpoint of lake surface and recumbent terrain supporting towering trees, creates a classic stage suited to the genteel parties—boating, picnicking, promenading, or simply relaxing—in and out of the groves sheltering the bank. Kensett's artistic training in Britain in the 1840s seems revealed by the evocation here of earlier English views along the Thames River, for example, below Richmond Hill.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Summer Day on Conesus Lake
  • Artist: John Frederick Kensett (American, Cheshire, Connecticut 1816–1872 New York)
  • Date: 1870
  • Culture: American
  • Medium: Oil on canvas
  • Dimensions: 24 1/8 x 36 3/8 in. (61.3 x 92.4 cm)
  • Credit Line: Bequest of Collis P. Huntington, 1900
  • Object Number: 25.110.5
  • Curatorial Department: The American Wing

More Artwork

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[Photographs of paintings by J. F. Kensett]
John Frederick Kensett
1874 (?)
Lake George, 1872, John Frederick Kensett American, Oil on canvas, American
Lake George, 1872
John Frederick Kensett
1872
Seated female figures, train in left background, ship in right background (bank note design)
John Frederick Kensett
ca. 1835–72
Bank Note Element: A Woman in Classical Robes Embracing a Large Broken Stone Letter "I", with a Distant Sailing Ship to the Left and a Factory to the Right
John Frederick Kensett
1835–72
Bank Note Element: Three Cupids with Tendrils
John Frederick Kensett
1835–72

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