The Raffle (Raffling for the Goose)

William Sidney Mount

1837 · Oil on mahogany · The American Wing

America’s most successful mid-nineteenth-century painter of narrative scenes, Mount depicted various aspects of his rural Long Island life around Stony Brook, New York. His seemingly simple, good-natured subjects also address complex social and political issues of the time. For example, the impromptu lottery of The Raffle (Raffling for the Goose) has been interpreted as an allusion to the widespread food shortages brought on by the country’s financial panic of 1837.

Artist

William Sidney Mount

Date

1837

Medium

Oil on mahogany

Culture

American

Department

The American Wing

Credit line

Gift of John D. Crimmins, 1897