View Across a River (from Sketchbook)
ca. 1860–ca. 1864
Medium
Graphite, watercolor, on buff paper
Dimensions
9 3/4 x 13 7/8 in. (24.8 x 35.2 cm)
Classification
Watercolor
Culture
American
Department
The American Wing
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Purchase, Sheila and Richard J. Schwartz Fund and Gifts in memory of Stephen D. Rubin, 1992
Accession Number
1992.373.13 verso
Tags
Art Historical Context
Thomas Hewes Hinckley'sView Across a River ( Sketchbook)*, created around 1860–1864, offers a tranquil glimpse of American nature during a turbulent era. This intimate landscape study, rendered in graphite and watercolor on buff (9 3/4 x 13 7/8 in.), captures a river vista framed by trees, evoking the expansive beauty of the 19th-century American wilderness. As part of a sketchbook page, it reflects the artist's on-the-spot observation, blending precise pencil lines with fluid washes to suggest depth and atmosphere. Hinckley, an American painter known for his landscapes and portraits, employe...
About the Artist
Thomas Hewes Hinckley · 1813–1896
Thomas Hewes Hinckley (1813–1896) was an American painter who became one of the leading specialists in animal painting in the United States during the mid-nineteenth century. Born in Milton, Massachusetts, he was largely self-taught in his early years, developing his skills through sustained observation of animals in the field and study of European masters whose work he encountered in reproduction...