Adult Funeral Procession

Adult Funeral Procession

William P. Chappel

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Here, Chappel depicts a funeral procession with a minister leading the widower and his son, attendant mourners, and the pallbearers, identified by their white sashes and gloves. The pictured cemetery, located near Stanton and Chrystie Streets, would have been situated in the city’s northern reaches in 1807. By the turn of the nineteenth century, overcrowded cemeteries had become a major problem for New York, and in 1804, the council banned all burials south of Pump (now Canal) Street. By 1809, the council had also prohibited the common practice of interring the dead below the sidewalks just outside the walls of cemeteries when they reached capacity.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Adult Funeral ProcessionAdult Funeral ProcessionAdult Funeral ProcessionAdult Funeral ProcessionAdult Funeral Procession

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.