A City of Fantasy

Dating to 1850, this oil on canvas was created by an unidentified American artist active in the nineteenth century. The work's early history places its origins in Boston, though specific details regarding its commission or initial ownership remain unrecorded.

By the mid-twentieth century, the painting was held by John's Antiques. In 1954, the firm sold the piece to collectors Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch, who donated it to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., in 1967, where it remains. The provided sources do not contain a specific inventory or accession number, nor do they list any public exhibitions.

A City of Fantasy is an 1850 oil on canvas by an unidentified American 19th-century artist, classified as a cityscape depicting a house. It entered the National Gallery of Art's collection in Washington, D.C., after its sale from John's Antiques in 1954 to Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch, who gifted it to the museum in 1967. The work belongs within the broader tradition of 19th-century American cityscape painting, and its acquisition reflects mid-20th-century patterns of American folk-art collecting and museum formation.

A City of Fantasy is an oil on canvas painting that depicts an imagined urban landscape of towering, slanted houses leaning over a narrow canal. The composition is dominated by vivid, saturated hues that contrast sharply with the dark, reflective street surface, creating a sense of tension between the fantastical architecture and its wet, somber ground.