Artwork Details
- Title
- Erie Railroad
- Artist
- Unidentified
- Date
- 19th century
- Location
- Dimensions
- 18 1⁄2 x 22 1⁄4 in. (47.0 x 56.5 cm.)
- Credit Line
- Gift of Herbert Waide Hemphill, Jr. and museum purchase made possible by Ralph Cross Johnson
- Mediums
- Mediums Description
- oil on canvas
- Classifications
- Keywords
- Architecture — bridge
- Landscape — water
- Architecture — vehicle — train
- Recreation — sport and play — fishing
- Figure male — full length
- Architecture — science — power lines
- Object Number
- 1986.65.146
Artwork Description
This painting was created by an unknown artist in Pennsylvania, probably during the mid- to late nineteenth century. Folk art collector Herbert Waide Hemphill Jr. acquired the piece in 1962 and added the unusual frame, which is carved and stained to resemble tree limbs. The Erie Railroad was chartered in 1832, and the first train ran from New York to Lake Erie in 1851, with President Millard Fillmore as a passenger. In this painting, the sweeping track and accompanying telegraph poles emphasize the dramatic growth of transport and communications during the second half of the nineteenth century. The man fishing in the foreground, however, evokes a simpler time when the world moved less quickly.