Public collection via the Cleveland Museum of Art
AT-00000260The Power of Music
About the Artwork
Set in rural Long Island before the Civil War, Mount's complex painting presents an African American laborer listening intently to a fiddle tune enjoyed by white men. While a love of music unites the figures in a bond of shared humanity, the two races occupy different spaces--one inside, one outside, both separated by a barn door--effectively symbolizing the pronounced divisions in America at the time.
Inscriptions
signed lower left: Wm S. MOUNT. / 1847
Provenance
1991-: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio 1990-1991: (James H. Maroney, Jr., Leicester, VT, and Christie's, New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art) 1880-1990: The Century Association, New York, NY 1870-1880: Gideon Lee, Jr. [1824-1894], Carmel, NY? 1859-1870: Mrs. Gideon Lee [d. 1870], Geneva, NY, probably by descent to her stepson, Gideon Lee, Jr. -1859: Charles M. Leupp [1807-1859], New York, NY 1847-: Laura (Mrs. Gideon) Lee [1800-1870], Geneva, NY, to her son-in-law, Charles M. Leupp
Exhibition history
William Sidney Mount: American Genre Painter. New-York Historical Society (August 14-October 25, 1998); Frick Art Museum, Pittsburgh, PA (November 20, 1998-January 10, 1999); Amon Carter Museum (February 5-April 4, 1999). American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life 1765-1915. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY (organizer) (October 5, 2009-January 24, 2010); Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA (February 28-May 23, 2010).
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 7, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Quick Overview
- Artist
- William Sidney Mount (American, 1807–1868)
- Date
- 1847
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- Framed: 67 x 78 x 7.5 cm (26 3/8 x 30 11/16 x 2 15/16 in.); Unframed: 43.4 x 53.5 cm (17 1/16 x 21 1/16 in.)
- Type
- Painting
- Classification
- Painting
- Department
- American Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund
- Accession no.
- 1991.110
More by William Sidney Mount in museum collections
Open-access museum record · AT-00000260
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