American Harvesting
Within a mountainous landscape, a woman and children approach a fence next to field where harvesters work. The engraving reproduces a painting by Cropsey (1851; Ezkenazi Museum of Art, Indiana Univeristy) and was published by the American Art-Union, a New York institution that boasted nearly nineteen thousand subscribers at its height in 1849–50. For an annual fee of five dollars, each subscriber-member received a fine, large engraving and was entered in a lottery to win original artworks shown at the Art-Union's Free Gallery. The organization aimed to educate the public about contemporary American art and established a distribution network that reached every state, contributing to the creation of a national market for landscapes, genre paintings and small bronze sculptures. The system flourished for a limited period, however, with no lottery taking place in 1851, the year that this print was announced as part of a set of small engravings titled "Gallery of American Art, No. II." It was not published until 1853, the year that the Art-Union was forced to dissolve.
Artwork Details
- Title: American Harvesting
- Series/Portfolio: Gallery of American Art, No. II
- Engraver: James Smillie (American, Edinburgh 1807–1885 Poughkeepsie, New York)
- Artist: After Jasper Francis Cropsey (American, Rossville, New York 1823–1900 Hastings-on-Hudson, New York)
- Publisher: American Art-Union, New York (1838–51)
- Date: 1851
- Medium: Etching and engraving
- Dimensions: Image: 6 15/16 × 10 1/4 in. (17.7 × 26.1 cm)
Sheet: 11 1/8 × 13 15/16 in. (28.2 × 35.4 cm) - Classification: Prints
- Credit Line: Gift of Harriet McDonald, 1941
- Object Number: 41.91.186
- Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints
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