The Devil and Tom Walker (1856): Art, History and Details

The Devil and Tom Walker (1856) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is John Quidor (American, 1801–1881).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Based on a story by Washington Irving published in 1824, The Devil and Tom Walker presents a miserly man who encounters the devil while traveling through a heavily wooded swamp. Walker, seen on the left in the painting, strikes a deal with the devil, who holds an ax at far right, soon gaining riches but losing his soul in the process. Ultimately, the devil destroys Walker.

Object facts

• Title: The Devil and Tom Walker
• Date: 1856
• Creator attribution: John Quidor (American, 1801–1881)
• Culture: United States
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on canvas
• Dimensions: Framed: 84 x 104 x 8.5 cm (33 1/16 x 40 15/16 x 3 3/8 in.); Unframed: 68.8 x 86.6 cm (27 1/16 x 34 1/8 in.)
• Collection: American - Painting
• Department: American Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1967.18

A detail from the museum

Only around 35 paintings by John Quidor are known to exist today.

Collection credit

Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• “Year in Review.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 54, no. 10 (December 1967): 302–346.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.