Dining Room and Stage Offices at White Sulphur Springs

Dining Room and Stage Offices at White Sulphur Springs

John Hazelhurst Boneval Latrobe

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Latrobe, son of the architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe, visited the popular resort at White Sulphur Springs in 1832. In letters, he described the dining room—seen here in the center of the composition—as a place where a scramble occurred at every meal. Between two large trees in the foreground, Latrobe shows small knots of hungry guests forming outside the dining hall and collecting on the paths and covered porch. Although the activity and the building anchor the foreground, most of the sheet is given over to the rolling hillside nestled beneath the mountains, all gilded by high sunlight.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Dining Room and Stage Offices at White Sulphur SpringsDining Room and Stage Offices at White Sulphur SpringsDining Room and Stage Offices at White Sulphur SpringsDining Room and Stage Offices at White Sulphur SpringsDining Room and Stage Offices at White Sulphur Springs

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.