Bar-room Scene
William Sidney Mount (American, 1807–1868)
1835
View the original$14
Type
Size · in
Secure checkout · powered by Stripe
Materials & printing
Archival matte paper, 189 g/m² (10.3 mil), sourced from Japan, printed with multicolor water-based inkjet so every brushstroke stays crisp. Framed prints arrive ready to hang in a .75″ ayous-wood frame with an acrylite front. Sized to standard frames by cropping, never stretching — at most about 3% comes off one edge, which isn’t noticeable on most pieces, and we only offer a size when it stays that small.
Shipping & returns
Made to order and delivered in 5–8 business days (2–4 to print, 3–4 in transit). US shipping only for now. Because each print is made for your order, all sales are final — but if it arrives damaged or defective, send us a photo within 14 days and we’ll replace it free. Full policy.
Why is it this affordable?
A thin, flat margin on every piece — just enough to keep the store running. Most of what you pay is the print itself. We only sell sizes that reproduce at full quality, and we don’t mark up the large sizes the way most shops do.
About this work
William Sidney Mount specialized in scenes of everyday life known as genre paintings. He was one of the earliest American artists to do so, and his compositions, including Bar-room Scene, are rich in narrative and humor and engage with the complex cultural, political, and racial circumstances that defined antebellum society. Here Mount portrayed a boisterous group of patrons in a New York public tavern. The seated men encourage the drunken dance of the central figure, whose tattered clothes and inebriated state suggest a less fortunate position. The figure in the back corner, likely a free Black man, also frequents the tavern but does not participate fully or equally in this 1830s community.
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Original size
- 57.4 × 69.7 cm (22 5/8 × 27 7/16 in.)
Museum record · 3 owners · 5 exhibitions
Provenance
- Gouverneur Kemble, Cold Spring, N.Y., 1835.
- Ehrich Galleries, New York, by 1911.
- William Owen and Erna Sawyer Goodman, Chicago, 1911; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1939.
Exhibitions
- New York, National Academy of Design (May–?), Tenth Annual Exhibition.
- Art Institute of Chicago, The Friends of American Art, Loan Exhibition of American Paintings at the Art Institute of Chicago, Jan. 8–28, 1914, as The Breakdown.
- Brooklyn Museum, Exhibition of Drawings and Paintings by William Sidney Mount: 1807–1868, Jan. 23–Mar. 8, 1942, ill. as The Breakdown.
- New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, William Sidney Mount and His Circle, Jan. 31–?, 1945 as The Breakdown.
- Long Island, New York, The Suffolk Museum at Stony Brook, The Mount Brothers (Aug. 23–Sept. 28, 1947, ill. as The Breakdown. Milwaukee Art Institute, 19th Century American Masters, Feb. 20–Mar. 28, 1948 as The Breakdown. Cincinnati Art Museum, Rediscoveries in American Painting, Oct. 3–Nov. 6, 1955 and as The Breakdown. Art Institute of Chicago, Two Centuries of American Art, 1750-1950, Oct. 1, 1959–Jan. 10, 1960, no cat.. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, American Narrative Painting, 1974, ill. as The Breakdown. William Sydney Mount: American Genre Painter Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth Feb. 5–May 4, 1999.
