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Conflagration of the Masonic Hall, Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Samuel Jones

1819

oil

panel

From the collection of Art Institute of Chicago

American Folk Art Romanticism Early 19th Century Cityscape

Dominant colour

About this work

The painting shows a big fire burning down a building on Chestnut Street in Philadelphia. It's a dramatic scene with flames and smoke. The fire was a big event, and the artist was asked to paint it so it could be made into a print and shared with people, which was a way to spread news back then. This was a way for artists to make money and for people to see important events. To learn more about this style of painting, look at the technique of chiaroscuro.

The story of this work

Overview

On March 9, 1819, Masonic Hall, built just 8 years earlier, burned to the ground. A Philadelphia publisher commissioned artists Samuel Jones and John Lewis Krimmel to create a composition of the fire’s devastation for distribution as a print (etched by John Hill). Circulation of such sensational events was an early 19th-century means of broadcasting news, expanding the reach of fine arts, and making a profit. Jones painted this work, which served as a study for the print. Krimmel, the nation’s first great genre painter, was hired to refine and amplify the figural scene in the foreground. As…

Exhibition history

Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Pennsylvania Germans, A Celebration of Their Arts, 1683–1850, Oct. 17, 1982–Jan. 9, 1983; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Mar. 5–May 15, 1983; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, de Young, July 2–Sept. 3, 1983; Art Institute of Chicago, Dec. 10, 1983–Jan. 29, 1984 (Chicago only; not in cat.)

Publication history

Art Institute of Chicago, Annual Report 1982–83 (Chicago, 1983) p. 31 (ill.). Art Institute of Chicago, "A Record of Sharing with Chicago's Masterpiece," (Chicago, 1983) p. 6 (ill.). Milo Naeve, "John Lewis Krimmel: an Artist in Federal America," (Newark, 1987) cat. 9 (ill.).

Read the full account in the museum source.