Cider Making

William Sidney Mount

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In this work, Mount explicitly recorded the steps involved in making hard cider, presenting an image of idyllic farm life in Setauket, Long Island. While the scene is vivid and cheerful, it also references current events. A newspaper story about the painting suggested that Mount may have intended each figure to represent candidates in the 1840 presidential campaign. In that race, the successful Whig candidate, William Henry Harrison, defeated the Jacksonian Democrats by presenting himself as a "common man," who would rather drink cider in a log cabin than reside in the White House.

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