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In the Stable

Albert Pinkham Ryder, born New Bedford, MA 1847-died New York City 1917

Albert Pinkham Ryder painted with a "wet-on-wet" technique, by adding new layers of thick paint and varnish before the previous ones had a chance to dry. This overloaded the work to such an extent that one visitor described his work as a "boggy, soggy, squitchy picture truly," and some paintings are still soft a hundred years later. At one point, In the Stable was covered with a network of cracks known as alligatoring, the worst of which have since been filled by a conservator. The white horse in the image was modeled after Ryder’s horse Charley, which he owned as a child in New Bedford, Massachusetts. (Broun, Albert Pinkham Ryder, 1989)

Date

before 1911

Type

Painting

Medium

oil on canvas mounted on fiberboard

Department

SAAM

Institution

Smithsonian American Art Museum

Object number

saam_1929.6.97

Credit

Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly