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Exhibition History“American Folk Art: Collection from the Fenimore Art Museum,” Mona Bismarck Foundation, Paris, France, January 25, 2001 – March 24, 2001.
“Through the Eyes of Others: African Americans and Identity in American Art”, New York State Museum, Albany, NY, August 28, 2009 – January 14, 2010; Fenimore House Museum, Cooperstown, NY, August 23, 2008 – December 31, 2008.
"Art of the Everyman: American Folk Art from the Fenimore Art Museum,” Florence Griswold Museum, Old Lyme, CT, May 28, 2014 – September 29, 2014.
BibliographyAndrea C. Mosterman, Spaces of Enslavement: A History of Slavery and Resistance in Dutch New York (Cornell, NY: Cornell University Press, 2021).
Gretchen Sullivan and Mary C. Sorin Aimonovitch, Through the Eyes of Others: African Americans and Identity in American Art (exh. cat. New York: Fenimore Art Museum, 2008).
Colleen Cowles Heslip, Between the Rivers: Itinerant Painters from the Connecticut to the Hudson (Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1990), p.12.
Jean Lipman, Robert Bishop, Elizabeth V. Warren, Sharon L. Eisenstate, Five Star Folk Art: One Hundred American Masterpieces (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1990), pp. 66-7, image.
Kenneth John Myers, The Catskills: painters, writers, and tourists in the mountains, 1820-1895 (exh. cat. Hudson River Museum of Westchester, Hanover MA, University Press of New England, 1988), image. (Original title of catalog: Above the Clouds: Painters, Writers and Tourists in the Catskill Mountains).
Attributed to
John Heaton
Related Person
Van Bergen Family
Van Bergen Overmantel
Datec. 1733
DimensionsFramed: 16 1/2 × 88 7/8 × 2 in. (41.9 × 225.7 × 5.1 cm)
Object numberN0366.1954
Credit LineCollection of the Fenimore Art Museum. Museum Purchase
Photograph by Richard Walker
Label TextThis painting of the Marten Van Bergen farm in Leeds, New York, conveys more visual information about Dutch life in America than any other surviving object of the period. It is the only contemporary representation of a colonial period Dutch farm and among the earliest representations of the American landscape, as it includes a panoramic view of the Catskill Mountains in the distance. Besides the house, a Dutch barn, two Dutch hay barracks, a blacksmith shop, and the gable of a second house are illustrated. The people depicted include the Van Bergen family, indentured servants, enslaved people, and two Esopus Indians. Most Dutch farms were primarily devoted to such cash crops as wheat and peas. The farm animals seen here-horses, cows, sheep, and chickens-supplied the needs of the farm's inhabitants. John Heaten was an Englishman who married a Dutch woman and painted portraits in the Upper Hudson Valley in the 1730s and 1740s.Exhibition History“American Folk Art: Collection from the Fenimore Art Museum,” Mona Bismarck Foundation, Paris, France, January 25, 2001 – March 24, 2001.
“Through the Eyes of Others: African Americans and Identity in American Art”, New York State Museum, Albany, NY, August 28, 2009 – January 14, 2010; Fenimore House Museum, Cooperstown, NY, August 23, 2008 – December 31, 2008.
"Art of the Everyman: American Folk Art from the Fenimore Art Museum,” Florence Griswold Museum, Old Lyme, CT, May 28, 2014 – September 29, 2014.
BibliographyAndrea C. Mosterman, Spaces of Enslavement: A History of Slavery and Resistance in Dutch New York (Cornell, NY: Cornell University Press, 2021).
Gretchen Sullivan and Mary C. Sorin Aimonovitch, Through the Eyes of Others: African Americans and Identity in American Art (exh. cat. New York: Fenimore Art Museum, 2008).
Colleen Cowles Heslip, Between the Rivers: Itinerant Painters from the Connecticut to the Hudson (Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1990), p.12.
Jean Lipman, Robert Bishop, Elizabeth V. Warren, Sharon L. Eisenstate, Five Star Folk Art: One Hundred American Masterpieces (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1990), pp. 66-7, image.
Kenneth John Myers, The Catskills: painters, writers, and tourists in the mountains, 1820-1895 (exh. cat. Hudson River Museum of Westchester, Hanover MA, University Press of New England, 1988), image. (Original title of catalog: Above the Clouds: Painters, Writers and Tourists in the Catskill Mountains).
On View
On view
