Catalog of the Fine Arts Collection

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 us at 748-8291.

 

Attributed to Archibald M. Willard (1836-1918), American
Untitled, undated
OIL ON CANVAS, 10 x 11 ¾ inches
Gift of Cornelia Taylor Fairbanks

Ohio painter Archibald Willard made a career in art with his comic scenes of young children on dog-drawn carts chasing down rabbits, His paintings of this theme devel¬oped considerable popular interest during the early 1870s and reportedly sold thousands of copies when reproduced in the newly devel¬oped mass medium of chromolithography. This painting is either by Willard or a replica of one of his compositions.
Willard is best known, however, for his depiction of a Revolutionary piper and two drummers leading the troops entitled The Spirit of ‘76 which he exhibited at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876. The work remains a beloved national symbol, incorporating Willard's unpretentious, unrefined realism with his flair for the dramatic.

 
 
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