Mishap at the Ford

Provenance

Possibly S.W. (possibly Samuel Wyllys) Pomeroy, Esq., Cincinnati, c. 1849.[1] (Irving Barlow, Boston area),1955/1956; acquired 1955/1956 by (Vose Galleries, Boston);[2] purchased April 1957 by the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington; acquired 2015 by the National Gallery of Art. [1] If a painting titled _Crossing the Ford_, and lent to the Western Art-Union in Cincinnati in 1849, is this painting, it was lent by Pomeroy. [2] Vose Galleries, in a letter of 5 April 1957 to Corcoran director Hermann Warner Williams, Jr. (in NGA curatorial files), writes that the painting "appeared a few months ago in the Boston area, in the hands of an antique dealer." The painting "had graduated through several hands to a small picture dealer before it came to [the attention of Vose Galleries]." Vose Galleries had no success tracing the painting beyond the first dealer, whose name was provided to Emily Shapiro of the Corcoran by Siobhan Wheeler of Vose Galleries in an e-mail of 3 March 2004 (copy in NGA curatorial files).

Mishap at the Ford

Fisher, Alvan

1818

Accession Number

2015.19.83

Medium

oil on wood

Dimensions

overall: 70.17 × 91.28 cm (27 5/8 × 35 15/16 in.) | framed: 90.81 × 110.81 × 10.16 cm (35 3/4 × 43 5/8 × 4 in.)

Classification

Painting

Museum

National Gallery of Art

Washington, D.C., United States

Credit Line

Corcoran Collection (Museum Purchase, Gallery Fund)

Tags

Painting Neoclassical & Romantic (1751–1850) Oil Painting American

Background & Context

Background Story

Alvan T. Fisher (1792-1863) was an American painter known for his genre scenes and animal subjects in the straightforward manner of the early American painting tradition. Mishap at the Ford from 1818 depicts a carriage mishap at a river ford in the straightforward, narrative manner that distinguishes Fisher's best genre scenes. The 1818 date places this in the earliest period of American genre painting, when Fisher was one of the first American painters to specialize in genre subjects rather than portraits, and the mishap subject allowed him to exercise his talent for combining narrative with the detailed depiction of animals and vehicles.

Cultural Impact

Mishap at the Ford is important in the history of American genre painting because it represents one of the earliest American genre subjects—a carriage mishap at a ford rather than a formal portrait or history painting. Fisher's 1818 painting shows American painting beginning to develop its own genre tradition, combining narrative subject with the detailed depiction of everyday life that would become the hallmark of American genre painting in the 19th century.

Why It Matters

Mishap at the Ford is early American genre painting taking shape: a carriage mishap at a ford rendered in the straightforward, narrative manner that distinguishes Fisher's best work. The 1818 painting represents one of the earliest American genre subjects, showing American painting beginning to develop its own narrative tradition.