A Bit of War History: The Recruit
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
28 1/4 x 20 1/4 in. (71.8 x 51.4 cm) (framed with 84.12a and 84.12c)
Classification
Painting
Culture
American
Department
The American Wing
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of Charles Stewart Smith, 1884
Accession Number
84.12b
Tags
Art Historical Context
**A Bit of War History: The Recruit** Thomas Waterman Wood painted this evocative oil on canvas in 1866, just a year after the American Civil War's end. Measuring 28¼ × 20¼ inches, the portrait captures a young recruit amid the era's turmoil, evoking the human stories behind the conflict. Housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's American Wing as a gift from Charles Stewart Smith in 1884, it stands as a poignant artifact of national healing and remembrance. Wood, a prominent American genre painter, excelled in character studies that highlighted everyday figures with realistic detail and em...