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Portrait 1939.100.5
Boy with Finch
Portrait 1939.100.5

Boy with Finch

Dateca. 1800
Attributed to John Brewster, Jr. (1766 - 1854)
OriginAmerica, New England or New York
MediumOil on canvas
DimensionsUnframed: 39 x 24in. (99.1 x 61cm) and Framed: 44 x 29in.
Credit LineGift of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller
Object number1939.100.5
DescriptionA full-length portrait of a young boy facing full front and standing on a patterned surface (floor, floor cloth, or carpet). He wears a gray- buttoned, green "skeleton" suit with a wide white ruffled collar. He has brown eyes, and his shoulder-length, putty-colored hair turns up at the ends with the front cut in bangs. His proper left arm is bent at the elbow, the forearm parallel to his waistline, and on his extended index finger, a yellow and black bird perches. His proper right arm hangs more loosely, the elbow only slightly bent. The floor decoration consists of a dark brown ground with squares set on the diagonal; the squares are formed by pointed oval shapes, some colored yellow, some orange. The squares enclose blue, yellow-centered, daisy-like flower blooms. The background is painted gray.

The 2 7/8-inch frame is a modern replacement. It is cove-molded and black-painted with a gilt liner and an outer quarter-round molding.

Label TextSee "Provenance." The portrait's long association with acc. no. 1939.100.6, a portrait of a young girl also attributed to John Brewster, Jr., is a factor in the assumption that the two subjects were siblings. A number of compositional and coloristic similarities support the notion. but It has not been verified, and the identities of the children remain undetermined. (See "Curatorial Remarks" for one author's identification of the subject of 1939.100.6 as Nancy Prince [?-1790] of Newburyport, Massachusetts.)

Brewster was born a deaf-mute but was encouraged to cope with his affliction from an early age. He mastered reading and writing, then studied painting under the Reverend Joseph Steward (1753-1822), and he began portraying family members and Hampton, Connecticut, neighbors in the early 1790s. By 1796, he was living in Maine, probably in Buxton with his younger brother, Royal, but he also traveled extensively in order to find and accommodate a portrait cilentele, He worked not only in Connecticut and Maine but also in Massachusetts and eastern New York. Full-scale and miniature portraiture provided him a livelihood for the remainder of his life.


ProvenanceEdith Greogor Halpert's records (see below) state that a man now known only as "Johnson" claimed to have once owned 1939.100.5 and 1939.100.6, adding that he "found the two pictures in the possession of a family residing in Beacon, New York (Dutchess Co.)." Halpert noted that Johnson could not recall the name of the Beacon family but said that the family told him about an area ancestor of theirs who had been an itinerant physician. Exactly who then speculated that the physician may have been the children's father is unclear --- whether the Beacon family, Johnson, or Halpert.

Purchased [presumably from Johnson] by Mrs. Mark W. Henderson of South Norwalk, Conn. [and, later, University, Va.]; sold at Parke- Bernet Galleries, New York, NY, on April 23, 1938; Edith Gregor Halpert, Downtown Gallery, New York, NY; purchased from the preceding by Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, by whom given to Colonial Williamsburg in 1939.