Fish

Shepard Alonzo Mount · 1842

Medium

Oil on panel

Original size

17.2 × 27.3 cm (6 3/4 × 10 3/4 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Romanticism

Painted in 1842, Shepard Alonzo Mount's *Fish* is a quietly confident still life that turns an ordinary catch into a study of light, texture, and the beauty of the everyday. Mount worked in the shadow of his more celebrated brother, William Sidney Mount, but carved out his own reputation on Long Island as a skilled portraitist and genre painter. In *Fish*, he brings that same attention to surface and character — the silvery scales catch light with a naturalism that rewards close looking. Working on panel rather than canvas, Mount achieved a smooth, precise ground that suits the subject's reflective quality, lending the composition an almost tactile presence. The painting reflects the broader American interest in humble subject matter during the mid-nineteenth century, when genre scenes and still lifes were gaining serious critical attention. The work is now held in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, where it stands as a modest but accomplished example of mid-century American still-life painting. Our hand-painted oil reproduction is made to order on artist-grade materials, replicating Mount's brushwork, tonal range, and the warm intimacy of the original panel — bringing a piece of American art history into your home as a living, hand-crafted object rather than a print.