Old Ferry Stairs
1870s
Medium
Oil on slate paper
Dimensions
6 1/16 x 9 1/8 in. (15.4 x 23.2 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
54.90.491
Rights
Public Domain
Tags
Art Historical Context
William P. Chappel's *Old Ferry Stairs* offers a charming glimpse into New York City's bustling waterfront during the 1870s. This small oil painting captures the lively activity at a ferry landing, where boats, carriages, and passengers converged along the docks. As part of the Metropolitan Museum's American Wing, the work reflects the era's reliance on ferries for transportation across the city's rivers before the great bridges transformed urban life. Painted on slate paper—a less common support that lends a smooth, durable surface—the intimate scale of just over six by nine inches invites close viewing. Chappel’s attention to everyday details, from the carriages lined up to the vessels at the water’s edge, conveys both the energy and the rhythms of 19th-century New York commerce and travel. Acquired through the Edward W. C. Arnold Collection, the painting preserves a vivid record of the city’s working waterfront. Its presence in the Met underscores the importance of such scenes in documenting American urban history and the daily lives of its inhabitants.
About the Artist
William P. Chappel · 1801–1878
American, 1801–1878