Monarch of the Farm
William H. Howe
1891
Medium
Painting
Classification
Painting
Department
Smithsonian Collection
Museum
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Credit
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. William Henry Howe
Accession Number
1921.1.3
Tags
cattlebarn
About this artwork
William Henry Howe made a name for himself in France and the United States as a painter of animals. His farm scenes provided patrons with an antidote to the unnerving changes in American society brought about by industrialization. The prize bull and placid cow in these paintings evoke the patriarchal and matriarchal roles of a nineteenth-century household, and hark back to an ideal of agrarian America that seemed distant from the urban bustle of the Gilded Age.