The Jolly Flat Boat Men

Thomas Doney

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A flatboat, or cargo raft, here floats down the Mississippi as the crew relaxes, dances and plays musical instruments. In 1847, the American Art-Union purchased Bingham’s painting "The Jolly Flatboatmen" (1846; National Gallery of Art) directly from the artist. The subscription-based organization, founded in 1838 as the Apollo Association, boasted nearly ten-thousand members at this date. For an annual fee of five dollars, each received a large reproductive engraving and was entered in a lottery to win original artworks exhibited at the Art-Union’s Free Gallery. Aimed at educating the public about contemporary American art, the organization developed an impressive distribution network that reached members in every state. The broad circulation of the Art-Union's print helped to establish Bingham's reputation and made his river scene famous.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art