# Dover Plains, Dutchess County, New York

- By: Asher B. Durand (born Jefferson Village, NJ 1796-died Maplewood, NJ 1886)
- Date: 1848
- Medium: oil on canvas
- Classification: Paintings
- Dimensions: 42 1/2 x 60 1/2 in. (107.9 x 153.7 cm.)
- Culture: Dutchess County
- Credit line: Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Thomas M. Evans and museum purchase through the Smithsonian Institution Collections Acquisition Program
- Museum: [Smithsonian Institution](https://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=7642)
- Rights: [CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://invisiblenetwork.ai/thumbs/web/c19d27ef94481c616cd654143adc42ae.jpg
- Who can see it: Tweens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

The pre-Civil War American landscape served as an idyllic reminder of the nation’s promise, a real-world Garden of Eden. Paintings by Durand and other Hudson River school artists focused on the Arcadian qualities of the landscape. When Dover Plains was first shown in 1848 an art critic wrote, “It is so invested with the characteristics of the natural scenery of our land that almost every visitor who looks upon it could localize the scene.” Durand helped promote the idea that the country’s scenery was emblematic of the nation’s ideals.