Winter Scene in Brooklyn
On a snowy day more than 200 years ago, Francis Guy painted this detailed view from his Brooklyn studio. ❄️ As you look closer, more is revealed—from day laborers to merchants to members of Brooklyn’s free African American community.
See this painting now in Breaking the Mold: Brooklyn Museum at 200!
Let’s zoom in on this painting. 🔍 It’s teeming with details.
See if you can spot a man feeding chickens, another straining at a partly frozen water pump, two people cutting and gathering firewood, and someone who has slipped and fallen. There are almost as many animals as people: A horse pulls a sled. Dogs run and play, and pigs and cows roam freely as the neighborhood rapidly transitions from farmland to town.
Winter Scene in Brooklyn doesn’t illustrate what Guy’s street actually looked like—it’s a composite. However, he was representing real people in his community. From a diagram Guy created, we know the names of a few neighborhood families, as well as some businesses.
Can you guess which Brooklyn neighborhood this is in today? 🤔
Guy painted the scene he saw from the window of his second-floor studio at 10 Front Street. Today, that’s right next to the Brooklyn Bridge!
By 1846, when this painting entered the collection of what was then the Brooklyn Institute, downtown Brooklyn—now DUMBO—had already transformed from the village Guy depicted. The artwork has served as a touchstone for local history and an anchor for education at the Brooklyn Museum ever since.
Try this
Take a look out your own window. How would you capture your neighborhood?
Some things to consider:
- What is the weather like today?
- What are your neighbors wearing? What are they doing?
- Who is chatting? What does their body language reveal?
- Are there animals around? How do they interact with the people?
If you make a creation inspired by this prompt, we want to see it!
From the top: Francis Guy. Winter Scene in Brooklyn, ca. 1819–20. Oil on canvas. Brooklyn Museum, Transferred from the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences to the Brooklyn Museum, 97.13. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum); Map of the Consolidated City of Brooklyn, 1861. Engraving with watercolor. Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Barbara Head Millstein, 76.160.1. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)
