The Ohio River near Wheeling, West Virginia

Lefevre James Cranstone

1859–60 · Watercolor and gouache on off-white wove paper · The American Wing

The English genre artist Cranstone visited the United States for less than a year shortly before the Civil War and produced hundreds of ink and watercolor views of Washington, D.C., Niagara Falls, and sites in Indiana and West Virginia. Most of the surviving drawings found their way into public collections in Indiana and Boston. Cranstone’s interest in steamboat traffic along the Ohio River could have been inspired by Charles Dickens’s account of travel along the waterway, published in his “American Notes” of 1842. In the 1840s, steamboats became the principal means of transportation on the Mississippi and its tributaries, which linked America’s western frontier.

Artist

Lefevre James Cranstone

Date

1859–60

Medium

Watercolor and gouache on off-white wove paper

Culture

American

Department

The American Wing

Credit line

Purchase, Gifts of Mrs. Louise Lamson and Mrs. Alfred N. Lawrence, by exchange, 1984