Bar-room Scene
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William Sidney Mount specialized in scenes of everyday life known as genre paintings. He was one of the earliest American artists to do so, and his compositions, including Bar-room Scene, are rich in narrative and humor and engage with the complex cultural, political, and racial circumstances that defined antebellum society. Here Mount portrayed a boisterous group of patrons in a New York public tavern. The seated men encourage the drunken dance of the central figure, whose tattered clothes and inebriated state suggest a less fortunate position. The figure in the back corner, likely a free Black man, also frequents the tavern but does not participate fully or equally in this 1830s community.
The museum’s own description, in English. Licence: CC BY 4.0
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Details
- Maker
- William Sidney Mount (American, 1807–1868)
- Date
- 1835
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 57.4 × 69.7 cm (22 5/8 × 27 7/16 in.)
- Place of origin
- Long Island
- Held by
- Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago · Not on view
- Credit line
- The William Owen Goodman and Erna Sawyer Goodman Collection
Image: Art Institute of Chicago, CC0
