Artwork · 19th century · William Sidney Mount

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Bar-room Scene

William Sidney Mount1835Oil on canvas57.4 × 69.7 cm

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At a glance

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In a plain country tavern, a man in ragged clothes dances with a mug held high while the others sit around him laughing.
The American painter William Sidney Mount made it in 1835.
It catches a slice of everyday life in 1830s New York with plenty of humor, and in the back corner stands one man who is not quite part of the fun.

Reading the picture

5 places to look closer

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Zoom in on the dancer. A metal mug is raised high in his right hand, and one leg kicks up off the floor. His coat is full of holes, and the lining pokes out at the elbow. The museum points out that the torn clothes and the drunken dance hint at a man down on his luck.
Look at the pair seated on the left. The young man in the tan coat leans forward, hands open as if about to clap. Beside him, a white-haired old man holds a long clay pipe to his lips, smoke curling up, and grins. Behind them a boy in a striped cap tugs at its brim, beaming.
Zoom in on the far right corner. A Black man in a hat stands close to the wall, leaning on a stick. The museum describes him as likely a free Black man in 1830s New York, someone who could come into the tavern but did not take part fully or equally. Notice how far he stands from the lit center of the room.
Now the floor at the lower right. An upturned hat holds a bit of red cloth. Beside it sit a brown stoneware jug and a long-handled tool. A single spot of light gleams on the jug. You start wondering who left them there.
Zoom in on the cupboard shelves at the left. A brown bottle, a glass decanter of red liquor and a pitcher stand in a row. The pinkish door frame and the red drink glow softly in the dim room.

When it was painted

In 1835 Mount was twenty-seven. He had grown up in the farming village of Stony Brook on Long Island, and as a young man he learned sign painting in New York City alongside his older brother Henry. After that he studied at the newly founded National Academy of Design.

At first he painted history scenes and portraits. Then, in 1830, he painted country people dancing, and he changed direction. Genre painting, pictures of ordinary neighbors on an ordinary day, was still rare in America at the time. The same year as this tavern scene, he also painted farmers haggling over a horse in Bargaining for a Horse.

In June 1835 the New York magazine The Knickerbocker mentioned this picture in its fine arts column. Scholars have also recorded an earlier title for it, The Breakdown. A breakdown was a lively, foot-stomping dance.

Mount loved music himself. He played the fiddle, and in 1852 he even patented a violin of his own design. Many American painters of his day went to Europe to study, but Mount never went. He painted the people and places of Long Island all his life.

The man in the corner carries his own history. New York had ended slavery completely in 1827, but free Black New Yorkers still did not share the same place as their white neighbors.

Look back at that corner. While everyone laughs at the dancer, he stands a little apart and watches the whole scene.

The painter

William Sidney Mount

1807–1868

When painting this, the artist was about 28 years old

All paintings by William Sidney Mount →

Bar-room Scene

Questions to think about

Look for itBesides the dancer, how many people in the room are smiling or laughing?
Why?Why do you think Mount placed the Black man in the dim back corner instead of near the light?
What about you?Everyone laughs at a drunk man in torn clothes. How different is that from filming someone's embarrassing moment and passing it around online today?

Same period