Artist: Worthington Whittredge (1820–1910)
Title: Landscape with Haywain
Date: 1863
Medium: oil on canvas
Dimensions: 24 x 36 in. (61 x 91.4 cm.)
Inscriptions: signed and dated ‘W. Whittredge./1863’ (lower right)
Collection: Cleveland Museum of Art
What I love about this painting:
Harvest is upon us! September has arrived and it is time to get as much hay stored away as possible. Whittredge has painted a glorious day at the end of summer. Everything is meticulously done, from the house on the shore of the lake below us, to the boulders left behind by glaciers, and the hayfield itself. Neat stacks of hay wait for the men to load onto the wagon, raked and stacked by the women.
Every member of the family is working together to get the job done, as they must get it under cover before the autumn rains come. Damp hay or straw goes moldy and becomes inedible. Worse, the heat generated by decomposition can cause it to spontaneously combust … and fire is a thing no one wants to have happen in their barn.
In centuries past, hay and straw were indispensable commodities. No family could do without either. Along with grain, hay fed the animals. Straw was useful as bedding for livestock and people, and when firewood ran low, it could be twisted tightly into logs and burned. Certain kinds of straw could be used to thatch a roof.
Making hay was a harvest-time activity that took place across the countryside in past generations and still does in our local farming communities. While tractors and baler machines have replaced horses and some of the labor, one can still see giant rolls of hay in the fields, waiting to be transported to the barns.
About the Artist:
Thomas Worthington Whittredge (May 22, 1820 – February 25, 1910) was an American artist of the Hudson River School. Whittredge was a highly regarded artist of his time, and was friends with several leading Hudson River School artists including Albert Bierstadt and Sanford Robinson Gifford. He traveled widely and excelled at landscape painting, many examples of which are now in major museums. He served as president of the National Academy of Design from 1874 to 1875 and was a member of the selection committees for the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition and the 1878 Paris Exposition, both important venues for artists of the day. [1]
To read more about this artist and his work, go to Worthington Whittredge – Wikipedia
Credits and Attributions:
IMAGE: Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Worthington Whittredge – Landscape with Haywain – 1975.20 – Cleveland Museum of Art.tiff,” Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Worthington_Whittredge_-_Landscape_with_Haywain_-_1975.20_-_Cleveland_Museum_of_Art.tiff&oldid=1259548575 (accessed September 8, 2026).
[1] Wikipedia contributors, “Worthington Whittredge,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Worthington_Whittredge&oldid=1366270905 (accessed September 8, 2026).
