Waiting for the Stage
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
overall: 38.1 × 46 cm (15 × 18 1/8 in.) framed: 52.4 × 60.3 × 8.6 cm (20 5/8 × 23 3/4 × 3 3/8 in.)
Classification
Painting
Department
CAB
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Corcoran Collection (Museum Purchase, Gallery Fund, William A. Clark Fund, and through the gifts of Mr. and Mrs. Lansdell K. Christie and Orme Wilson)
Accession Number
2014.79.36
Art Historical Context
Richard Caton Woodville'sWaiting for the Stage*1851), an oil on canvas measuring 38.1 × 46 cm, captures a moment of mid-19-century American life. As a prominent genre painter, Woodville specialized in vivid depictions of everyday scenes infused with narrative drama, drawing from the realist traditions of both American and European masters like William Sidney Mount. This intimate-scale painting, now part of the National Gallery of Art's Coran Collection, evokes the anticipation and camaraderie of travelers at a remote stagecoach stop during the era of westward expansion. Painted in oil—a mediu...