George Walter Vincent Smith Art Museum 220 State Street Springfield Massachusetts 01103 Accession Number: 1.23.69
Date:
1883-1884
Notes:
Coll./Exh.checklist "19th C American Paintings," 1970.
"Selections from the American Collections of the Museum of Fine Arts and the George Walter Vincent Smith Art Museum," Springfield, MA: Springfield Library and Museums Association, 1999, pg. 172-173.
Flower, Dean, and Francis Murphy, "A Catalogue of American Painting, Water Colors and Drawings (to 1923) in the George Walter Vincent Smith Art Museum," Springfield, MA: George Walter Vincent Smith Art Museum, 1976, pg. 73.
Summary:
A group of men and boys gather in the post office corner of a country store while one of them, probably the store owner, reads aloud from a newspaper that he holds up in his hands. The figures are engrossed in the news, which would appear to be about the election results. Two boys with excited faces lean in from the background, while the foreground figures, an old man with a cane, the store owner with the newspaper, and a laborer, react with pleasure to what they hear. A more formally dressed man in a black coat and top hat, wears an expression of unhappiness, or concern, about the news. In the background, a boy in a drummer's uniform climbs up to retrieve a drum hanging on the wall behind the group, perhaps indicating that a parade or celebration is about to begin. The post office setting, with its postings for New York and the Boston Weekly Globe, suggest a small town on the East Coast. On the floor in front of the group, are the torn bits of paper from the newspaper's mailing wrapper, indicating that the paper is not local. The entire title of the newspaper is not visible, but it begins, "The Sanf" --possible referring to Sanford, Maine, a town near Portland where the artist had lived.
