Chimney Sweeps
1870s
Medium
Oil on slate paper
Dimensions
6 1/16 x 9 5/16 in. (15.4 x 23.7 cm)
Classification
Painting
Culture
American
Department
The American Wing
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
The Edward W. C. Arnold Collection of New York Prints, Maps, and Pictures, Bequest of Edward W. C. Arnold, 1954
Accession Number
54.90.505
Tags
Art Historical Context
"Chimney Sweeps" by William P. Ch, painted in the 1870s, offers a poignant glimpse into everyday American urban life. This small oil on slate paper measures just 6 1/16 x 9 5/16 inches, it may have been a preparatory sketch or intimate study. The work, housed in The Metropolitan Museum of Art's American Wing, captures men on city streets lined with houses—likely evoking the bustling neighborhoods of New York or similar industrial hubs during a time of rapid urbanization. In the 1870s, chimney sweeping was a grimy, hazardous trade often associated with immigrant laborers and working-class men ...
About the Artist
William P. Chappel · 1801–1878
American, 1801–1878