Landscape with Tower (from McGuire Scrapbook)

Thomas Cole

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Though the diminutive figures near the base of this graphite composition suggest a narrative involving a boat departure or arrival on the far bank of the stream, the subject has not been linked to any literary source or other pictorial narrative by Cole. Medieval subjects including towers, however, are familiar in his paintings, in landscapes both Italian and British in inspiration. This one appears British, its turret resembling the one in Cole's 1838 historical painting The Past (Mead Art Museum, Amherst College), in which, as part of a castle, it serves as a foil for an equestrian joust in the foreground.

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