Dem Was Good Ole Days
Artist
Thomas Hovenden
(American, 1840-1895)
Date1885
MediumEtching
DimensionsOverall, Support: 25 1/4 x 19 3/8 in. (64.1 x 49.2 cm)
Overall, Image: 16 5/8 x 12 1/4 in. (42.2 x 31.1 cm)
Overall, Plate: 19 3/4 x 14 1/2 in. (50.2 x 36.8 cm)
Overall, Image: 16 5/8 x 12 1/4 in. (42.2 x 31.1 cm)
Overall, Plate: 19 3/4 x 14 1/2 in. (50.2 x 36.8 cm)
ClassificationsAmerican art
Credit LineMuseum purchase with Funds Provided by The Chrysler Museum Landmark Communication Art Trust; An Anonymous Donor; Mr. and Mrs. Richard M. Waitzer; Mr. and Mrs. Richard F. Barry III; and The Museum's Accession Fund
Object number92.49.2
Terms
- Portrait
- Man
- Negro
- Banjo
- African-American Theme
- Plymouth Meeting, PA
On View
Not on viewLabel TextThomas Hovenden American (1840-1895) Dem Was Good Ole Times, 1885 Etching Museum Purchase with Funds Provided by The Chrysler Museum Landmark Communication Art Trust; An Anonymous Donor; Mr. and Mrs. Richard M. Waitzer; Mr. and Mrs. Richard F. Barry III; and The Museum's Accession Fund 92.49.2 Irish by birth, Thomas Hovenden came to America in the 1860s and pursued a career in painting. Like many of his contemporaries, he succumbed to the lure of France and studied with Jules Breton and Alexandre Cabanel in Paris to develop carefully constructed compositions, accomplished modeling of form, and subject matter that appealed to an increasingly cosmopolitan American audience. After his marriage and return to America in 1881, Hovenden became a quiet, sympathetic observer of the country people around his home, many of whom were African-American. Paintings such as Dem Was Good Ole Times embody the growing psychological considerations that pervaded American art in the wake of the Civil War and the nation's Centennial. There was a literal and figurative interiorization of artistic attitude. Hovenden brought a dignity, restraint and profound ingredient of human understanding to his interpretation. The musical element of this painting is important, since the banjo was descended from African instruments, and their musical heritage was one of the very few things that could not be effaced from the slaves' African roots. Hovenden liked Dem Was Good Ole Times enough to create an etching which provided wider distribution of the image. An impression hangs adjacent to the painting. The Museum was also fortunate to acquire a drawing by Hovenden that depicts the sitter found in Dem Was Good Ole Times. That drawing is also on display here. Hovenden's painting enriches the Museum's 1866 canvas by Eastman Johnson, Fiddling His Way, and provides superb insight to the American response to French-inspired academic art. Yet, it also offers a distinctive late 19th-century American genre painting that avoids the overtly sentimental. Edited By: GLY
Thomas Barrow