The Last Price

J. C. Arter was an American painter active in the late 19th century, known for genre subjects that depicted rural and small-town American life with the anecdotal detail and narrative clarity that appealed to the American art market of the period. The Last Price from 1895 depicts a negotiation over the last price of something—a horse, a farm product, or a piece of property—with the narrative clarity and genre detail that distinguish American anecdotal painting of the late 19th century. The 1895 date places this in the period when American genre painting was competing with the more progressive tendencies of Impressionism and the Ashcan School.

Arter's The Last Price is important as an example of American anecdotal genre painting of the late 19th century—the type of narrative painting that depicted rural and small-town American life with the clarity and detail that appealed to the popular art market. The 1895 painting demonstrates the continuing popularity of anecdotal genre painting in the period when more progressive tendencies were beginning to challenge its dominance in American art.

The Last Price is Arter's American anecdotal genre painting: a negotiation rendered with the narrative clarity and genre detail that appealed to the popular art market of the late 19th century. The 1895 painting represents the tradition of anecdotal genre painting that competed with Impressionism and the Ashcan School for the American art market.