Buttermilk Pedlar

William P. Chappel

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The ever-growing network of farms and ferries that extended throughout the region supplied city residents with an array of foods, including buttermilk. Those who could not get to the market relied on peddlers for convenience. The Dutch-style brick residence and carriage house at right are commodious; though, the older Dutch style had fallen out of fashion with some. In 1806, a Philadelphian derided them as "uncouth," scoffing that one "might walk up the wall to the peak of the roof with tolerable safety, the mason having kindly built it so as to form steps of about ten inches in height. They were probably once thought handsome."

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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.

Metropolitan Museum of Art