Haying Scene

1836

Oil on wood door panel

Overall: 24 3/8 x 11 3/8 x 1/2 in. (61.9 x 28.9 x 1.3 cm)

Bequest of Mrs. Andrew Chalmers Wilson, great-grandaughter of Luman Reed

1963.9

"Haying Scene" is one of a series of door panels that the New York art collector Luman Reed (1785-1836) commissioned to enhance the overall appearance of the art gallery in his Manhattan townhouse. As was fashionable among other elite American collectors, the floor plan of Reed's gallery was a double parlor. Two small doors opened into each of the two rooms, and two larger doors divided the double parlor, all of which had recessed panels. With the passion of a true collector, Reed was not one to waste valuable space for displaying works of art and decided to fill the door recesses with original paintings. Calling on Thomas Cole, Asher B. Durand, George Whiting Flagg, and William Sidney Mount to contribute to the scheme, Reed commissioned panels of simple genre subjects, which were to be executed in a free and uncomposed manner. Fourteen of the original panel paintings survive, four of which are by Cole and the rest attributed to Durand. The New-York Historical Society holds seven of the surviving panels attributed to Durand, including this one, which would have been mounted on one of the smaller doors leading into each room of the art gallery. The other seven panels are dispersed among private collections and the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut.

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