Bar-room Scene
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
57.4 × 69.7 cm (22 5/8 × 27 7/16 in.)
Classification
painting
Department
Arts of the Americas
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
30709
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
William Sidney Mount specialized in scenes of everyday life known as genre paintings. He was one of the earliest American artists to do so, and his compositions, including Bar-room Scene, are rich in narrative and humor and engage with the complex cultural, political, and racial circumstances that defined antebellum society. Here Mount portrayed a boisterous group of patrons in a New York public tavern. The seated men encourage the drunken dance of the central figure, whose tattered clothes and ...
About the Artist
William Sidney Mount · 1807–1868
Comment on works: Portraits; still-life