Mourning Picture: Alone

Date1815-1825

MediumWatercolor and pencil on wove paper

DimensionsPrimary Support: 9 1/16 x 10 3/4in. (23 x 27.3cm) and Framed: 11 1/2 x 13 9/16in.

Credit LineGift of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller

Object number1931.304.2

DescriptionWatercolor mourning picture painted within an oval, with white paper all around. Rectangular tomb in center of landscape setting, with tall slender urn on top of tomb and a garland of yellow roses entwined around urn. No inscription on tomb although space left for such inscription. A girl stands to left of tomb, leaning on it, weeping with her face hidden by a crudely drawn white hankerchief. She wears a short sleeved, high waisted white dress, and tiny pointed black shoes. Her hair is brown long (shoulder length) and curly. She is very crudely drawn. Behind her is a thick weeping willow, it appears to have been drawn as a dead tree trunk with most of limbs chopped off, and willow branches are growing out of stumps of limbs. A pond is visible in the right foreground. Four cedar trees grow on hill on left distance. On top of hill to right are four tiny houses, with red chimneys. The largest is yellow with green shutters. Several nondescript flowers and grasses grow in the foreground. The picture appears to have been sketched in pencil and filled in with watercolors. Artist unidentified.
The 1 1/2-inch, mid-nineteenth-century frame is grain-painted to resemble rosewood and is a replacement.
Label TextThe strange proportions and stiff arrangement of the pictorial elements, together with the crudely drawn figure whose face is conveniently obscured by a veil or handkerchief, suggests that this less-than-accomplished memorial was done as a classroom exercise and never finished. It was not unusual for a student to execute a memorial without a specific subject in mind. Some examples were left blank in anticipation of future need, while other mourning pictures were dedicated to relatives or national heroes who had died before the young artist was born.

ProvenanceFound in Concord, Mass.; Edith Gregor Halpert, Downtown Gallery, New York, NY; Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Jr.; Given to C. W. by Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Jr.