Summer Flowers

Jerome B. Thompson

1859 · Oil on canvas · The American Wing

To offset the trials of city living, wealthy nineteenth-century New Yorkers often escaped to rural estates, where--according to the architectural theorist Andrew Jackson Downing--the “humble roof, . . . shady porch, . . . verdant lawn, and smiling flowers offered a “barrier against vice, immorality, and bad habits.” Thompson’s cheerful view of a Gothic Revival-style Hudson River Valley home, seen at a distance behind an elegant family seated in a blossoming field, embodies Downing’s bucolic ideal.

Artist

Jerome B. Thompson

Date

1859

Medium

Oil on canvas

Culture

American

Department

The American Wing

Credit line

Gift of Madeleine T. Edmonds, 1984