The Power of Music

Cleveland Museum of Art

The Power of Music

William Sidney MountLinkedCulture matchlcp-2851bf565972

Date
1847
Medium
oil on canvas
Culture
America
Department
American Painting and Sculpture
Institution
Cleveland Museum of Art
Object ID
155783

From the Cleveland Museum of Art record

Set in rural Long Island before the Civil War, Mount's complex painting presents an African American laborer listening intently to a fiddle tune enjoyed by white men. While a love of music unites the figures in a bond of shared humanity, the two races occupy different spaces--one inside, one outside, both separated by a barn door--effectively symbolizing the pronounced divisions in America at the time. Mount was an accomplished fiddle player and even patented a new design for the instrument.

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Provenance & credit

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Credit line
Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund
Provenance
1991-: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio | 1990-1991: (James H. Maroney, Jr., Leicester, VT, and Christie's, New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art) | 1880-1990: The Century Association, New York, NY | 1870-1880: Gideon Lee, Jr. [1824-1894], Carmel, NY? | 1859-1870: Mrs. Gideon Lee [d. 1870], Geneva, NY, probably by descent to her stepson, Gideon Lee, Jr. | -1859: Charles M. Leupp [1807-1859], New York, NY | 1847-: Laura (Mrs. Gideon) Lee [1800-1870], Geneva, NY, to her son-in-law, Charles M. Leupp

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