A Calm Watering Place--Extensive and Boundless Scene with Cattle1816 · Study 1994.106

Context from the museum

In this prime example of Fisher’s early rural pictures, a ferry delivers two wealthy women and their belongings ashore, as a herd of especially handsome cattle rests in the foreground. Boston-based Fisher was among the first American artists to specialize in landscape, recalling that “This species of painting being novel in this part of the country, I found it a more lucrative, pleasant and distinguishing branch of the art than portrait painting.”

Museum description reproduced from its CC0 open-access record. Read the original catalog entry.

A detail to notice

Some of his fellow artists hired Alvan Fisher to paint animals into their own works because he was so skilled at it.

Observation supplied by the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Read the dimensions before the image

The selected unframed measurement for A Calm Watering Place--Extensive and Boundless Scene with Cattle is 102.2 cm wide and 78 cm high, equivalent to approximately 40.2 × 30.7 inches. Dividing width by height gives a format ratio of 1.31:1. The rectangular bounding area is 0.80 square meters; it describes the measured footprint, not the amount of paint or the monetary value.

On an illustrative 300 cm wall, the recorded width occupies 34.1% of the span before adding a frame. A centered placement leaves approximately 98.9 cm on each side before adding a frame. These are calculations by Physical Art For Crypto using museum measurements. They are not the museum’s display recommendations.

Questions to bring to your own collection

With A Calm Watering Place--Extensive and Boundless Scene with Cattle in view, identify one feature you can point to, then distinguish what the museum records from your personal response. Keep its medium, oil on panel, in your notes when comparing contemporary works.

• Which part of this horizontal composition catches your eye first?
• Would a 102.2 cm width still suit the space after allowing for furniture and a frame?
• What surface detail would you need to see in person or in a close photograph?