Spring

Cephas Giovanni Thompson

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Thompson painted "Spring," his finest work, in New York City, shortly after establishing a studio in the University Building, at the easternmost corner of Washington Square. The canvas and its companion, "Autumn," were exhibited at the Apollo Association in January 1839. A fashionable artist, Thompson capitalized on the vogue for allegorical and romantic portraiture, constructing sentimentalized visions of young women. Here, the figure is adorned in the latest style of the season and placed in a lush garden complete with the requisite Neoclassical marble urn. Her arresting gaze and informal posture are complemented by Thompson’s light-infused handling of paint.

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