The Backwoods of America

Artist Jasper Francis Cropsey (1823 - 1900)

Date1858

MediumOil on canvas

Dimensions42 × 70 1/4 in. (106.7 × 178.4 cm)
Framed: 59 × 86 × 7 in.

ClassificationsPainting

Credit LineCrystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, 2006.100

Signedl.r., in brown paint: J.F. Cropsey / 1858

Accession number 2006.100

On View

Not on view

Collections

Art on Loan

Provenance(W. B. Huggins & Co., Glasgow, Scotland), by 1859; purchased by Private Collection, Glasgow, Scotland, March 10, 1859; (Williams & Sutch, London, England), 1932; to (Leslie W. Lewis, London, England), 1932; purchased by William H. Abbot, London, Ontario, Canada, 1932; given to University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada, January 1933; to (Sotheby's, New York, NY), April 23, 1981, lot 18; purchased by Richard and Jane Manoogian Foundation, Taylor, MI, 1981; purchased by Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR, 2006
Label TextJasper Francis Cropsey created this pioneer landscape while living in London. His foreign audience found exotic appeal in the American pioneer theme, and Cropsey produced many works on the subject. A garden with distinctly American pumpkins and corn is visible at lower right. When Cropsey painted the scene, land across the country was being developed at an unprecedented pace. As if forecasting the end of frontier life, Cropsey signed his name on a rock near the garden that resembles a tipped-over gravestone.