Object Story: Landscape with Riding and Walking Figures, a River, and a Village (Overmantel) - Body
Landscape with Riding and Walking Figures, a River, and a Village (Overmantel)
This painting by Winthrop Chandler shows a variety of characters who represent several levels of social hierarchy in late 1700s America. It was painted to hang in Ebenezer Waters’ home in West Sutton, Massachusetts. Ebenezer Waters (1739-1808) was a civil engineer and surveyor. The painting is called an “overmantel” because it was designed to hang over a mantel and thus be displayed prominently in the home.
This painting may be a house portrait or a landscape painting commissioned for a particular house. It could also be a more general view of the local area. Landscape paintings like these were not generally meant to be an accurate depiction of any particular place or scene. This work is more likely to be a generic portrayal of life in New England that is intended to capture a pleasant feeling, not to be particularly thought-provoking.
Chandler’s vision includes different people with defined roles and is meant to capture a sense of time and place in Massachusetts around the time of the American Revolution.
Landscape with riding and walking figures, a river, and a village (overmantel)
Winthrop Chandler (American, 1747-1790), Landscape with riding and walking figures, a river, and a village (overmantel), ca. 1770-1780, oil on pine panel. Jonathan and Karin Fielding Collection, L2015.41.159
A Traveler
The character of a man carrying a bag appears in other similar works of the time. He may be a traveler or a peddler carrying his goods for sale.
A Couple
A couple embraces in a shady spot.
Scenes of Daily Life
It was not unusual to use the space over the fireplace to show the hustle and bustle of public thoroughfares and outdoor spaces. This example is a scene of Boston Common and was made by a young woman named Hannah Otis. As in Chandler’s painting, a lot of activity is taking place. A man on horseback gallops by with a whip in his hand. Another figure tips his cap. Cattle, birds, dogs, rabbits, and a deer share the land and sky. A man in the bottom right corner holds a bow and arrow, ready to hunt. A small boat, perhaps a toy, glides over water. Overall, the embroidery provides a sense of the busy, vibrant exchanges of daily life at the time. For someone spending a lot of time in front of a fireplace, there would be lots of interesting details to contemplate.
Men on Horseback
English prints often served as the sources for the patterns and designs on large embroideries, including panels made to hang over fireplaces. Here, the men on their horses are similar to figures in English hunting prints.
Figures on the Far Bank
More people gather on the other side of the water. One man sits beneath a tree, another has a dog by his side. Two women seem to be talking to each other.
African Americans in Early America
Chandler made this overmantel sometime around 1770-1780. This means that Chandler painted it just before slavery was legally abolished in Massachusetts through court cases in 1781-1783. Even before the enslavement of African Americans ended in the area where this was made, African Americans held varied roles in society, and not all African Americans were enslaved. Outside of enslavement, African Americans still faced hardships as indentured servants, apprentices, or free laborers. This painting does not provide much information about the precise role or status of the African American figure on horseback in the front, though he seems well dressed and important on his horse. The inclusion of this figure among the other people taking part in public activities recognizes the presence and importance of African Americans in daily life at the time.
A Feeling of Home
Chandler painted this overmantel for a home. Including houses in the scene adds a homey, local feeling to the painting. One possibility is that it depicts the house in which it was installed.
Unrecorded artist (American), Family mansion of David Thayer, Bainbridge, New York, 1830, pencil, watercolor, and ink on paper. Gift of Jonathan and Karin Fielding, 2016.25.101
This image, Family Mansion of David Thayer, from 1830 is an example of a house portrait. This pen and ink drawing shows identifiable members of a household and the surrounding building and farmland. If you look closely you can see a sign that reads “D. Thayer Saddler. It shows a different perspective on life at the time. What ideas could we infer about hierarchy or status from this image? Why might David Thayer have asked for such a portrait? We don’t know much about David Thayer and his family, but we do know that this farmstead was located in or near Bainbridge, New York.
Questions for Discussion
- What tasks of daily life are depicted on the overmantel? What do you see in the image that leads you to those statements?
- How might this image shape our understanding of life at the time it was painted?
- What might be missing?
- What might be made up?
- What might be accurate?
- Winthrop Chandler was taught to create a tension in his paintings by enhancing the dramatic elements of the landscape. What elements of the overmantel seem to create that tension?
- What values do you think of when looking at the image? (“Values” are qualities that give things a special worth: fairness, justice, safety, respect, traditions, a nation or group a person belongs to, creativity, etc.)
- Are they your values or others’ values? Whose?
- Does the image affirm or challenge values or raise questions about these values?
- What does it say about Ebenezer Waters, the man who purchased the painting, that he would commission the piece and hang it in a place of honor in his home?
Suggested Activity
- Write a poem, a play, a journal entry, or a monologue from the perspective of one of the characters in the painting. Consider themes of hierarchy or status in society, everyday life, or the influence of the environment on early America.