Collections record Beta

Oil Painting - Crafting Musket Balls

2025-26-1

Sunny summer scene of people crafting lead musket balls under a wooden structure outside. Six white women are placed in the central foreground, three sitting, three standing. They are pouring molten lead into molds, cooling the molds, snipping the lead overpour off of the musket balls, and pouring finished musket balls into a trunk. All are dressed in bright colonial revival gowns. Baskets and bowls of balls can be seen around the central fireplace. A basket of wood sits on the ground in front of the fire. Two white children, one boy and one girl, are also standing in the foreground on the right side. The girl looks at the women working while holding a doll. The boy, just behind the girl, has a paper hat and wooden play sword looks off the canvas to the right. Five men are placed in the background, two on the left, three on the right. The leftmost white man is holding an axe, splitting up a yellow-ish shape. He is dressed in a colonial fashion, with buckle shoes, stockings, a tan waistcoat, and white shirt with a ruffle at the neck. Behind him at a distance is another man of unknown ethnicity wearing a brown shirt, working near a large red wagon wheel. On the right two white men dressed in blue military coats, tricorn hats, yellow waistcoats and pants, and ruffles at the neck. They are looking at papers they hold in their hands. Sitting in front of them is black man in a brown shirt and red vest, working on a yellow chest.

Colonial revival depiction of the account given by Oliver Wolcott Sr in the summer of 1776. After the Declaration of Independence was first read aloud in New York on July 9th, 1776, a group torn down an equestrian statue of King George III on Bowling Green. The lead statue was sent to Litchfield to be melted down into musket balls.

• Smith, James Calvert, 1878-1962

1935

52 1/8" width, 40 1/8" height, 2 1/4" depth

• oil
• canvas