The Golden Age
West’s "The Golden Age" imagines an ideal time when humans lived in peace and prosperity. Within a rural interior suggestive of the classical past, a mother sews and watches over her sleeping child, as its grandparents enjoy the sun and feed poultry by an open doorway. Outside, nature’s fertility is affirmed by a ploughman who guides oxen and symbolizes the pastoral ideal associated with the Golden Age, an ideal period described by ancient authors such as Hesiod and Ovid. Ironically, when this print appeared, Britain and America had just entered the Revolutionary War, a conflict that shattered societal serenity on both sides of the Atlantic.
Artwork Details
- Title: The Golden Age
- Engraver: Valentine Green (British, Salford 1739–1813 London)
- Artist: After Benjamin West (American, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania 1738–1820 London)
- Publisher: John Boydell (British, Dorrington, Shropshire 1720–1804 London)
- Date: June 4, 1777
- Medium: Mezzotint
- Dimensions: Plate: 18 5/8 × 22 5/16 in. (47.3 × 56.7 cm)
Sheet: 20 1/2 × 25 11/16 in. (52 × 65.2 cm) - Classification: Prints
- Credit Line: Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1947
- Object Number: 47.100.487
- Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints
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