Photography by Dwight Primiano
Home by the Lake
Frederic 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.
ArtistFrederic Church, 1826–1900
Date1852
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions44 x 60 1/2 x 7 in. (111.8 x 153.7 x 17.8 cm)
Signedl.l., in black paint: F.E. Church / 1852
Credit LineCrystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, 2008.16
ClassificationPainting
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
On ViewYes
This artwork's face covers about 2.5× the area of a standard movie poster.Drawn to the same scale.