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Accession #	67.205.2
Artist	Thomas Cole
Title	A Pic-Nic Party
Date	1846
Medium	Oil on canvas
Dimensions	47 7/8 × 72 1/2 in. (121.6 × 184.2 cm) frame: 57 1/8 × 81 × 4 3/8 in. (145.1 × 205.7 × 11.1 cm)
Signed	Signed lower center: "T Cole / 1846"
Credit Line	Healy Purchase Fund B
Location	Visible Storage: Case 23, Screen E (Paintings)

Curatorial Remarks: Thomas Cole undertook this painting in the fall of 1845 in response to a generous commission from the wealthy New York banker and philanthropist James Brown. Cole chose the subject of a picnic to describe the ideal coexistence of nature and civilization. The demand for paintings like this one that combined the figural and natural was a result, at least in part, of the rising popularity of outdoor leisure-time pursuits, including excursions such as picnics. However, hints of time’s passage and mortality invade this otherwise lighthearted scene through the ax-cut tree stump so prominent in the foreground.