Portrait of Sally Ann Bond (?-?) and Her Brother

Dateca. 1815

MediumWatercolor and ink on wove paper

DimensionsPrimary support: 8 7/8 x 7 3/4in. (22.5 x 19.7cm) and Framed: 11 3/8 x 10 1/8in.

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1968.300.1

DescriptionThis water color, ink, and pencil on paper depicts two children in a tiled room with large columns in the back. The girl is seated wearing a blue dress holding a doll in both hands. There is a little boy standing next to her and he is wearing a beige jumper with white ruffles around the collar. In one hand, the little boy is holding a string leading to a toy wagon on the floor. Underneath the girl, in ink, is the inscription "Sally Ann Bond and Her Brother." The piece is housed in a wood frame painted black with plexiglass front.
Label TextThis small watercolor is the most elaborate of five recorded works by the same unidentified artist. Two of the other four subjects are young girls depicted full- length, seated in bamboo-turned Windsor chairs and holding dolls in their laps in a manner similar to Sally Ann Bond. Sally Ann's unnamed companion, presumably her brother, is shown with a toy more typical of his gender, a miniature wagon.
InscribedHandwritten in ink in script below the image of Sally is "Sally Ann Bond/Born Sept 13 1810." Watermark in the paper, "J. WHATMAN/ 1811" for the Maidstone, Kent, England firm operated by the Hollingworth brothers between 1806 and 1859.
ProvenanceMrs. Julian Fehr, Palmyra, New York, 14522