In the Nick of Time
1848
19th Century
29 in. x 36 in.
Alvan Fisher,
(1792–1863)
Medium and Support:
oil on canvas
Credit Line:
Florence Griswold Museum, Gift of The Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Company
Accession Number:
2002.1.57
One of America's first native landscape painters, Fisher evidently based "In the Nick of Time" from a passage in one of James Fenimore Cooper's novels. A pair of hunters silhouetted against a mountain lake take aim at a mountain lion that hovers menacingly over a mother and her two small cildren resting at the base of a rock. Two dogs are poised with their complete attention on the mountain lion. "In the Nick of Time" expresses perfectly the romanticism of mid-19th century America, characterized by Cooper's descriptions of the adventures found in the American wilderness.