John Jay Barber (American, 1839–1910)

Cows Beside a Stream
Circa 1880
Oil on canvas
|Bequest of Rachael Higgins and Mrs. Helen Hemmick 1982.15029

How much will it cost? $250

Would it surprise you that dairy farming was so important in the lives of many nineteenth-century Ohioans that the Western Reserve region was referred to as “Cheesedom?” For Sandusky, Ohio-native John Jay Barber, who specialized in this genre, dairy cattle were a common and admired feature of the Ohio landscape.