Best known for detailed depictions of contemporary interior scenes, Woodville chose subject matter that was often ambiguous. In 1846, he sent The Card Players back to the United States to be exhibited. The Card Players was a great success for the artist. Politics in an Oyster House was commissioned in 1848 by Baltimore patron John H. B. Latrobe. Like other Woodville paintings, it was reproduced as a popular print. Widely acclaimed by American critics, this painting deals with the "low life" environment of oyster cellars and marginal characters that frequented them. Woodville's great attention to detail is very apparent in this painting. In one of his most popular paintings, Old ’76 and Young ’48 (1849), Woodville provides a glimpse into a tension-filled scene of generational differences between the old Revolutionary war veteran and the young wounded soldier home from the Mexican War. The interesting aspect of this painting is how Woodville continues to show the differences in these two generations through the objects located throughout this interior scene.
