Half-way House

Maker David Gilmour Blythe (American, 1815 - 1865)

Collections

American Paintings Selections

ClassificationsPAINTINGS

Date1864

Mediumoil on canvas

Dimensions22 x 39 1/2 in. (55.9 x 100.3 cm.) frame: 28 × 45 3/4 × 3 in. (71.1 × 116.2 × 7.6 cm.)

Signedl.l. Blythe

Credit LineThe Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. Gift of the Virginia Steele Scott Foundation

Status

On view

Label TextDavid Gilmour Blythe's genre paintings often satirize the follies of his fellow citizens of southeastern Pennsylvania. In Half-way House, a sleigh has overturned, dumping its occupants onto the muddy ground in front of the Half-way House tavern in Uniontown, Pennsylvania. Many of Blythe's paintings refer to the consequences of consuming alcohol, and he perhaps included the corked bottle in the foreground to suggest why the sleigh-driver lost control of the sleigh. The driver also might have been distracted by reading the Pittsburgh Post. Blythe, a supporter of the Union during the Civil War, disliked the Post for its editorial position that the Union should compromise with the Confederacy.

Blythe's genre paintings, depicting scenes from daily life, explore a darker side of the mid-19th century than the subjects chosen by his contemporaries George Caleb Bingham and Eastman Johnson, who tended to focus on the themes of work and community, as seen in examples in this gallery.

Object number83.8.5