George Caleb Bingham: Art lesson and why I collect No Motto gold

RYK

George Caleb Bingham was a self-trained 19th century American artist who painted around a thousand portraits and many river painting, election paintings, and other genre paintings between 1845-1857. He lived much of his professional life in Missouri, and our St. Louis Art Museum features some of his most famous genre paintings, including the above, Stump Speaking-or-The County Canvass (1853/1854), a large wall-sized painting of a scene from political life and times in frontier days prior to the Civil War. His scenes were very popular in his day, faithfully represented life and times, and engravings from them sold widely. I visited the above painting today. When I look at the individual characters of the painting, I wonder how these (fictional) people lived, what were their dreams and aspirations, how long did they live, what was their station, and so forth. From a numismatic standpoint, what coins did they have in their pockets? Did a Dahlonega or New Orleans half eagle make it up the Mississippi and find its way into one of their pockets? Did the well-dressed man in gray have one? The gambler? The drunk? Coins truly are history in your hand.

FatMan

Oh good, a thread about Art.

In all seriousness I was going to post an off topic thread wanting to know if anyone knew some good art dealers preferably in the southeast (Atlanta). I have a couple of decent paintings and I need to get rid of them.

curly

RYK...the "little" news is what I like about history. I also collect real picture post cards and photos and I love to get out my magnifying glass and look for small details, such as clothing, jewelry, shoes. I even look in the windows. Any time I get a circulated coin, I can't help but imagine the events that surrounded it. I'm sure that George Washington handled a few coins and Every time I see a circulated 18th century coin, I wonder if he had that one.

Great post...there's more to coins than uncirculated toners.