Leaving the Manor House

Leaving the Manor House from c. 1850-55 depicts figures leaving a manor house in a genre painting that combines the American landscape tradition with the social subject of class distinction. The manor house subject reflects the hierarchical social structure of the antebellum South or the Hudson Valley, where manor houses dating from the Dutch colonial period still defined the social landscape. The c. 1850-55 date places this in the antebellum period, when the social structure depicted in the painting—figures leaving a manor house that represents a social hierarchy—was about to be disrupted by the Civil War.

Leaving the Manor House is important in the history of American genre painting because it depicts a social structure—figures leaving a manor house that represents hierarchical social organization—that was about to be disrupted by the Civil War. The painting records the antebellum social landscape of manor houses and social hierarchy that the Civil War would transform, making it a visual document of a social order that was about to disappear.

Leaving the Manor House is antebellum social hierarchy on canvas: figures leaving a manor house that represents the social structure of the pre-Civil War period. The c. 1850-55 painting records a social order—manor houses and hierarchical social organization—that the Civil War would transform, making it a visual document of a world about to disappear.