The Art Gallery at the Athenaeum contains one of America’s unique collections of 19th century American paintings. Each week we will feature a different work on this page. We hope educators will use this link as a tool to enrich their art curriculum. Vermonters and other citizens throughout the nation can now visit our gallery in this new, intimate, and informative way.
The text describing each painting was written by Mark D. Mitchell, Assistant Curator of Nineteenth-Century Art at the National Academy Museum. The digital images were prepared by Robert Jenks of Jenks Studio of Photography in St. Johnsbury, VT.
Please note that the St. Johnsbury Athenaeum prohibits the use of images from its collection in public exhibition, broadcast, electronic reproduction or publication in any form without prior written permission from the institution. If you would like to reproduce any of the Art Gallery images in any form, contact Irwin Gelber at 748-8291, extension 307.
Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait (1819-1905), British-American
Deer, Early Morning on Racquette Lake in the Adirondack (Deer Hunting in the Adirondacks), 1872
OIL ON CANVAS, 21 ½ x 13 ½ inches
Gift of Horace Fairbanks
Known primarily for his hunting scenes, Arthur Fitzwilliam Tail's scene of deer wading in an inlet of New York's Raquette Lake (to use its current spelling) may well fall into that category, despite a notable absence of hunters. The stag in the foreground appears startled and looks in our direction, suggesting that the viewer may be cast in the hunter's role. The influence of Edwin Landseer, whose works Tait studied in the 18305 and early 18405, is apparent in this tense moment, particularly when viewed in comparison with the engraved reproduction of Landseer's Stag at Bay on display upstairs in Athenaeum Hall. Two does in the background of Tait's composition and a group of migrating geese add a sense of the hunting ground's abundance.
Archive of works previously highlighted:
Worthington Whittredge-Fishing
Thomas Waterman Wood - The Argument
A. Wordsworth Thompson - Waiting for the Steamboat at Menaggio
James M. Hart - Under the Elms
George Loring Brown - Bay of Naples
Sanford R. Gifford - The View from South Mountain in the Catskills
William Holbrook Beard - Why Puppy Looks Like Grandpa!
Wiliam Mason Brown - Raspberries
Adolphe William Bouguereau-Going to the Bath
After Anthony van Dyke-Children of Charles I
Albert Bierstadt - The Domes of Yosemite
Arthur Fitzwilliam Tate - Coming Home
John George Brown - Hiding in the Old Oak
Seymour Josephy Guy - Up for Repairs