Winged Fortune (1878): Art, History and Details

Winged Fortune (1878) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is William Morris Hunt (American, 1824–1879).

The work and its context

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

Winged Fortune is a study for a figure in The Discoverer, a mural that William Morris Hunt painted for the Assembly Chamber in New York's State Capitol in Albany. The mural presents Christopher Columbus in a boat; Winged Fortune stands behind him, her left hand holding the rudder while her right hand spreads the sail. Over time the murals badly deteriorated. Eventually, a new ceiling was added to the chamber, concealing them entirely, even to the present day.

Object facts

• Title: Winged Fortune
• Date: 1878
• Creator attribution: William Morris Hunt (American, 1824–1879)
• Culture: United States
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on canvas
• Dimensions: Unframed: 252 x 159.5 cm (99 3/16 x 62 13/16 in.)
• Collection: American - Painting
• Department: American Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1970.54

A detail from the museum

Many works by William Morris Hunt were destroyed by the Great Boston Fire of 1872.

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

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.