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monogrammed initials and dated "T.P.R. 1852" (lower left) inscribed on a label "T.P. Rossiter, artist, New Haven, CT" (on reverse) oil on canvas 24 x 34 in. (60.9 x 86.4 cm) Provenance Margaret Ketchum Parker, Connecticut, 1866 (By descent until 1988) Private Collection Thomas Prichard Rossiter was a popular member of the art circles of mid-nineteenth-century New York City. Quite versatile, he created portraits, history paintings, and landscapes as well as genre scenes. Typical of so many American artists of the period, he trained as an engraver and traveled and studied in Italy with his close friend John Frederick Kensett. While in Italy, he recorded the American expatriate circle in the well-known painting, A Studio Reception, 1841 (Albany Institute of History and Art). Rossiter exhibited widely, from Montreal to South Carolina and as far west as St. Louis, touring grand allegorical and biblical paintings. His charming narratives of everyday American life, such as House on the Hudson, were exhibited frequently. So sympathetic was he to the democratic spirit of genre painting that he transformed his grand series on George Washington into genre scenes. Critics praised Rossiter for his talent in accurately delineating contemporary objects, attire, and buildings. House on the Hudson is inscribed with the date 1852, and was probably one of the genre paintings Rossiter showed at the National Academy of Design. That year he exhibited seven portraits and figure paintings, receiving praise for both his realistic treatment and full, clear color. In House on the Hudson the crisply delineated foreground objects, a child~dq~s hat and toys spilling out of an overturned wheelbarrow, contrast with the airy, naturalistic setting of trees and poetic distant view of the river. The specific site of the landscape is not known, but city dwellers were beginning to build houses along the Hudson River, transforming the region into a suburban countryside. In 1860, Rossiter would design and construct a house for his own family in Cold Spring. House on the Hudson was probably originally shown under the title Rustic Porch (no. 21) or Just from Town (no. 183). The primary action of House on the Hudson involves a young couple and their children in a familial greeting. Such a positive narrative was intricately associated with the American theme of hearth and family, so crucial to establishing the sense of unity and national bonds in the decade prior to the outbreak of the Civil War. We are grateful to Ilene Fort for cataloguing this lot.