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The canal, completed in 1825, allowed people and goods to be carried with relative ease through terrain that was less hospitable to overland traffic, and it resulted in unprecedented population growth and prosperity for New York State. None of this would have been possible without the strength and endurance of mules and horses, which pulled the canal boats for hundreds of miles. Artists including Harvey and E.L. Henry found the innovation of canal travel to be fascinating subjects for their genre paintings.
Exhibition History“History of the New York State Legislature,” Albany Institute of History and Art, Albany, NY, March 14 – May 6, 1977.
“Wondrous Spaces,” The Museums at Hartwick College, Oneonta, NY, September 16, 1990 – January 31, 1991.
BibliographyMacleish, Bruce A., “Paintings in the New York State Historical Society,” in Antiques (September, 1984), p.594, fig. 5, ill.
Sotheby’s American Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture Sale (auct. cat. New York, May 18, 2005), pp. 170, 171, cat. no. 126, ill.
Artist
George Harvey
(1800 - 1878)
Pittsford on The Erie Canal
Datec. 1837
MediumWatercolor on paper
DimensionsFramed: 20 1/8 × 25 1/4 × 1 in. (51.1 × 64.1 × 2.5 cm)
Sight: 8 1/4 × 13 5/8 in. (21 × 34.6 cm)
Object numberN0384.1955
Credit LineCollection of the Fenimore Art Museum. Gift of Stephen C. Clark
Photograph by Richard Walker
Label TextGeorge Harvey intended to “represent the phases of the day and year, under various atmospheric effects of storm and calm - of sunshine and gloom.” Here, Harvey captured King’s Bend on the original Erie Canal, approximately one mile west of the center of Pittsford Village, looking towards the village. It was usual to have 250 canal boats a week pass through Pittsford, with more in the peak fall shipping season. The Erie Canal, a 363-mile-long waterway that connected Albany to Buffalo, was a revolution in transportation that linked New York City and the Hudson River to the Great Lakes and Western Reserve. The canal, completed in 1825, allowed people and goods to be carried with relative ease through terrain that was less hospitable to overland traffic, and it resulted in unprecedented population growth and prosperity for New York State. None of this would have been possible without the strength and endurance of mules and horses, which pulled the canal boats for hundreds of miles. Artists including Harvey and E.L. Henry found the innovation of canal travel to be fascinating subjects for their genre paintings.
Exhibition History“History of the New York State Legislature,” Albany Institute of History and Art, Albany, NY, March 14 – May 6, 1977.
“Wondrous Spaces,” The Museums at Hartwick College, Oneonta, NY, September 16, 1990 – January 31, 1991.
BibliographyMacleish, Bruce A., “Paintings in the New York State Historical Society,” in Antiques (September, 1984), p.594, fig. 5, ill.
Sotheby’s American Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture Sale (auct. cat. New York, May 18, 2005), pp. 170, 171, cat. no. 126, ill.
On View
Not on view
c. 1900
c. 1921
c. 1900
c. 1900
c. 1910-1920
c. 1954
