The information provided about this artwork was compiled as part of the Smithsonian American Art Museum's Inventories of American Painting and Sculpture database, designed to provide descriptive and location information on artworks by American artists in public and private collections worldwide.
Summary:
Landscape of an industrial gravel pit, with two pairs of horses, a white and brown pair, and a rust-colored pair, in the foreground center. The rust-colored pair has a cart waiting to be loaded with sand from a sand pile behind the horses. The setting is likely a gravel pit in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, by the Schuylkill River. The pit is bordered on the right by a beige structure with loading docks. There is a crane arm and a bucket on the right, a black gravel dispensing silo in the background center left, with the railroad cars underneath it being loaded. In the background, a train of railroad cars is looping around the silo toward the left edge of the painting, passing by two wooden utility/telegraph poles. The rail cars at the front are painted red. There is a purple shadow from some kind of structure in the lower left corner. The sky is clear blue with a big white cloud on the right, and a few smaller clouds on the left. There is a faint trace of a third pair of horses in the middle distance in front of the silo and to the left of the sand pile.