Photograph, Cabinet
[View Looking South from the Cupola of the Great Stone Barn]
ca. 1880
Description
This image records the appearance of the North Family from the vantage point of the cupola of the Great Stone Barn (1859). By 1880, the roof of the Barn had been changed from a flat roof, a roof that provided a platform for earlier similar views, to a slate-covered gable roof. In the center of the roof the Shakers built a two-story cupola that provided a slightly different vantage point for Wests photograph. It is reasonable to think that the photograph was made at harvest time by the fullness of the trees and fact that smoke is coming from the canning or preserving kitchen in the Dwelling (1818). This print is marked in the lower left-hand corner with James E. West's embossed stamp.
New York Mount Lebanon
