On the Esopus, Meadow Groves

ca. 1857-1858

Oil on canvas

Unframed: 25 1/4 × 45 in. (64.1 × 114.3 cm)
Framed: 37 in. × 56 7/8 in. × 5 1/4 in. (94 × 144.5 × 13.3 cm)

The Robert L. Stuart Collection, the gift of his widow Mrs. Mary Stuart

S-81

William Hart, who was raised with his brother James in Albany, portrayed a bucolic interlude along the course of the wandering Esopus that flows from the Catskills to the Hudson. A limpid pool mirrors the brilliant noonday sky; two children mind the watering cattle. Meadow Groves, as the painting was then known, drew admiration at the National Academy of Design for its alluring evocation of country life. "[T]his picture," wrote a critic for the art journal, The Crayon, "glows with light; the water, with the cattle standing at the margin of the stream-its clear, unruffled surface reflecting its bank and the clouds overhead-is beautifully rendered."

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