Audio Not Available

Home by the Lake

Artist Frederic Church (1826 - 1900)

Date1852

MediumOil on canvas

Dimensions31 7/8 x 48 1/4 in. (81 x 122.6 cm)
Framed: 44 x 60 1/2 x 7 in. (111.8 x 153.7 x 17.8 cm)

ClassificationsPainting

Credit LineCrystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, 2008.16

Signedl.l., in black paint: F.E. Church / 1852

Accession number 2008.16

On View

On view

ProvenanceHenry Dwight, Jr., New York, NY, 1852; Erastus Dow Palmer [1817-1904], Albany, NY; W. A. Camp, New York, NY; Gaston A. Bronder [1856-1922], Brooklyn, NY, 1912; (Clarke's Art Rooms, New York, NY), January 18-19, 1912, no. 42 (as the Adirondacks); purchased by Thomas Barlow Walker [1840-1928], Minneapolis, MN, 1912; transferred to T. B. Walker Foundation, Inc., Minneapolis, MN, 1925; transferred to Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN, 1976; (Sotheby's, New York, NY), May 24, 1989, no. 21; purchased by Jo Ann and Julian Ganz, Jr., Los Angeles, CA, 1989; purchased by Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR, 2008
Label TextFrederic Edwin Church’s painting offers an optimistic view of America’s future. The industrious pioneer couple has carved out a modest homestead in the wilderness, where nature provides for their material needs.

By the 1850s, debates over the spread of slavery into the American West threatened the Union. Church’s pioneers represent small-scale farmers in his native New England, visibly separate from the South’s slaverybased plantations.

Las pinturas de Frederic Edwin Church ofrecen una perspectiva optimista del futuro de los Estados Unidos. Esta pareja colonizadora ha establecido su modesto hogar en medio de la naturaleza, la cual provee mucho de lo que puedan necesitar.

Para la década del 1850, el debate sobre la propagación de la esclavitud hacia el oeste de los Estados Unidos amenazaba a la Unión. Los colonos de Church representaban a modestos granjeros en su tierra natal de Nueva Inglaterra, claramente alejados de las plantaciones sureñas que usaban mano de obra esclava.