“View of Monte Video, Seat of Daniel Wadsworth Esq.”

Hartford Atheneum founder Daniel Wadsworth was the patron of the renowned Thomas Cole (1801–1848), founder of the Hudson River School of landscape painting. When Wadsworth built his estate “Monte Video” at the top of “West” or “Talcott” Mountain, Cole painted in 1828 a famous landscape showing the house, grounds, valley and Farmington’s spire in the background. This work is now at the Wadsworth Atheneum. Since Avon did not separate from Farmington until 1830, we may fairly claim Cole as a “Farmington artist.” That distinction belongs also to John Trumbull, whose landscape titled “West Mountain” (at the Yale University Art Gallery) shows the same vista as it was in 1791. Wadsworth himself also sketched the area a number of times.