The Valley of Wyoming
Cropsey produced this painting for the first president of the New York Elevated Railroad Company, who was raised in Pennsylvania’s Wyoming Valley (his house is visible in the far distance). The original frame includes an excerpt from the Scottish poet Thomas Campbell’s "Gertrude of Wyoming" (1809), commemorating a massacre of American settlers in the same valley in 1778, during the American Revolution. Cropsey’s painting, completed as the Civil War ended, nods to past and present national tragedies and looks to the future—one presumed to be both pastoral and industrial—under providential rays of sunlight.
Artwork Details
- Title: The Valley of Wyoming
- Artist: Jasper Francis Cropsey (American, Rossville, New York 1823–1900 Hastings-on-Hudson, New York)
- Date: 1865
- Culture: American
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Dimensions: 48 1/2 x 84 in. (123.2 x 213.4 cm)
- Credit Line: Gift of Mrs. John C. Newington, 1966
- Object Number: 66.113
- Curatorial Department: The American Wing
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