Preparing for Christmas
| Support Type: | Canvas |
| Paint Type: | Oil Paint |
| Current Location: | The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, New York, USA — The American Wing, Gallery 736. |
| Location History: | The painting was created in the United States in 1851 and was exhibited/featured in the December 1852 auction of the American Art-Union, a subscription organisation that promoted American art through exhibitions and prints. Its later documented provenance connects it with the collection of Mrs. J. Insley Blair. It subsequently passed to Mrs. Screven Lorillard (Alice Whitney), from whose bequest it entered the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2016. It is now part of the Met’s American Wing collection, accession number 2016.797.19 |
An interpretation of Preparing for Christmas (Plucking Turkeys), painted in 1851 by American genre painter Francis William Edmonds, reveals a layered narrative that blends festive seasonal tradition with the tense racial politics of pre-Civil War America.The painting, which is housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, can be interpreted through three main lenses. Edmonds was heavily influenced by 17th-century Dutch genre painting. This influence is clear in his meticulous attention to ordinary, rustic life inside a barn or outbuilding. The scene captures the literal, gritty labor required to prepare a holiday feast. Rather than romanticizing the holidays, Edmonds portrays the cold, mundane reality of farm life the plucking of feathers, the scattered tools, and the heavy winter atmosphere.The core composition features three figures: two white men actively plucking turkeys and a younger Black figure standing between them.They are depicted as industrious, unbothered by the bitter winter cold, and fully focused on their task.Positioned in the center, he is seen warming his hands, momentarily distracted or disengaged from the work.In the 19th century, this dynamic was often interpreted by contemporary audiences as a humorous genre scene. However, modern interpretation highlights that Edmonds despite his Quaker education and presumably abolitionist background fell into prevailing period stereotypes by contrasting white productivity with Black perceived "idleness" or lack of efficiency. The painting was created in 1851, right in the middle of a highly tumultuous decade marked by the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and aggressive national debates over expanding slavery into western territories.During this era, Northern artists like Edmonds frequently included African American figures in prominent visual positions. While some did so out of deep empathy, others used these figures to subtly reinforce social hierarchies to appeal to the "average taste" of domestic art buyers. By embedding a Black character into a quintessential Northern holiday tradition, the painting serves as a reminder of how deeply racial dynamics and the shadow of slavery permeated even the most seemingly innocent depictions of American domestic life.