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Servants at a Pump

Nicolino Calyo, Italian American, 1799 - 1884ca. 1840

Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture

Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture
Washington, D.C., United States

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.

Details

  • Title: Servants at a Pump
  • Creator: Nicolino Calyo, Italian American, 1799 - 1884
  • Date Created: ca. 1840
  • Physical Dimensions: frame: 30 1/2 × 26 1/4 × 3 3/4 in. (77.5 × 66.7 × 9.5 cm)
  • Subject Keywords: Women, Art, Communities, Men, Children, Free communities of color
  • Medium: oil paint on canvas

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