Preparing for Christmas (Plucking Turkeys)
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
23 × 33 in. (58.4 × 83.8 cm)
Classification
Painting
Culture
American
Department
The American Wing
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Bequest of Mrs. Screven Lorillard (Alice Whitney), from the collection of Mrs. J. Insley Blair, 2016
Accession Number
2016.797.19
Tags
Art Historical Context
Francis William Edmonds's *Preparing for Christmas (Pl Turkeys)* (1851) captures a lively slice of mid-19th-century American rural life in this oil-on-canvas genre scene. Measuring 23 × 33 inches, the painting depicts men engaged in the hands-on task of plucking turkeys, evoking festive bustle of holiday preparations. As a quintessential genre painting, it highlights everyday activities of ordinary folk, a popular style in America during the antebellum era that celebrated domestic traditions and community labor. Edmonds, a banker-turned-artist, excelled in these detailed vignettes of American...
About the Artist
Francis William Edmonds · 1806–1863
Francis William Edmonds, born on November 22, 1806, in Hudson, New York, into a prominent Quaker family as the seventh child of storekeeper and public servant Samuel Edmonds and Lydia Worth Edmonds, displayed remarkable artistic talent from youth. After Quaker schooling and farm work, he entered banking in 1823 as a clerk at the Tradesmen's Bank in New York City under his uncle Gorham Worth, a pat...