Dover Plains

Engraver James Smillie American
After Asher Brown Durand American
Publisher American Art-Union, New York American
1851
Not on view
This idyllic upstate New York landscape reproduces a painting by the leading Hudson River School painter Durand. The latter's "Dover Plains, Dutchess County, New York" (1848: Smithsonian American Art Museum) represents figures climbing onto a rocky outcrop to admire the view. Cows graze at right, fields cover the valley below, and an expansive mountain-backed vista is seen in the distance. The print was published by the American Art-Union, a New York institution that boasted nearly nineteen thousand subscribers at its height in 1849-50. For an annual fee of five dollars, each member received a large, finely engraved, print and was entered in a lottery to win original artworks which were exhibited at the Art-Union's Free Gallery. Aimed at educating the public about contemporary American art, the group's distribution network reached members in every state. This contributed to the creation of a national market for landscapes and genre paintings. The system flourished for a limited period, however, with no lottery taking place in 1851, the year that the Art-Union issued this work as part of a set of small engravings titled "Gallery of American Art, No. I."

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Dover Plains
  • Series/Portfolio: Gallery of American Art, No. I
  • Engraver: James Smillie (American, Edinburgh 1807–1885 Poughkeepsie, New York)
  • Artist: After Asher Brown Durand (American, Jefferson, New Jersey 1796–1886 Maplewood, New Jersey)
  • Publisher: American Art-Union, New York (1838–51)
  • Date: 1851
  • Medium: Etching and engraving on steel
  • Dimensions: image: 6 7/8 x 10 3/8 in. (17.5 x 26.4 cm)
    plate: 10 15/16 x 14 5/8 in. (27.8 x 37.2 cm)
    sheet: 14 7/16 x 18 7/16 in. (36.6 x 46.9 cm)
  • Classification: Prints
  • Credit Line: The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1983
  • Object Number: 1993.1083(4)
  • Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints

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