Servants at a Pump
- Created by
- Calyo, Nicolino, Italian American, 1799 - 1884
- Subject of
- Unidentified Man or Men
- Unidentified Woman or Women
- Unidentified Child or Children
- Date
- ca. 1840
- Medium
- oil paint on canvas , wood
- Dimensions
- H x W (unframed): 24 × 20 in. (61 × 50.8 cm)
- H x W x D (framed): 30 3/16 × 26 × 3 3/8 in. (76.6 × 66 × 8.5 cm)
- Description
- This oil painting depicts seven individuals gathered around a water pump. From left to right these figures include: a young boy working the pump handle wearing brown pants and jacket with a blue shirt, a woman seated on a basket of laundry, wearing a pink dress and white head wrap, a man with his right leg propped up on the edge of the basin in a wide brimmed straw hat, a kneeling youth in a red shirt drinking from the pump's spout, a woman carrying a bucket, a man carrying a basket of peaches over his left arm and several dead fowl in his right hand, and a woman holding a baby and a green parasol. A black dog lies on the ground behind her. All individuals except the woman and baby are on a square pavement of red brick. The water pump sits in the middle of the pavement surrounded by a low walled, rectangular basin. The pump is a rectangular stone pillar topped with a small dome. A spout protrudes from halfway up the pillar, and the pump handle is a lever that protrudes from the adjacent pillar side. Water flows out the spout into the basin below. In the background is a landscape of trees on either side of a wide street with a few buildings in the distance. On the right is a white house with a green door and shutters, and a fanlight over the entrance. In the distance are two other white buildings, one on the left with a colonnade and a tall steeple, and a much smaller one across from it on the right with a cupola. There are a several indistinct figures walking and riding down the street.
- Place depicted
- Weeksville, Brooklyn, New York City, New York, United States, North and Central America
- Classification
- Visual Arts
- Slavery and Freedom Objects
- Type
- oil paintings
- Credit Line
- Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture
- Object number
- 2010.5ab
- Restrictions & Rights
- Public domain
- Proper usage is the responsibility of the user.