Girl with Hat

Dateca 1850

MediumOil on canvas

DimensionsUnframed: 42 1/8 x 32 7/8in. (107 x 83.5cm) and Framed: 46 1/2 x 37 1/2in.

Credit LineGift of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller

Object number1931.100.13

DescriptionOil portrait of a young girl seated on a rock in landscape setting. Girl shown full length seated slightly to right of canvas under a tree trunk with trees behind it. To right in distance are mountains and a river. She wears her blond hair parted in the middle in ringlets to shoulders. Her off the shoulder dress is white and blue dots on it, and short sleeves. There are coral bracelets with gold fastenings at each sleeve, and a similar coral necklace around her neck. She holds a peach in her right hand, and a wide brimmed white straw hat with a blue ribbon around it on her lap. Her white pantalettes, stockings and black shoes show below her dress. A very solid, stocky child.
Label TextChildren's portraits of the mid-nineteenth century are often rich in compositional elements and iconographical details as seen in this likeness of an unidentified little girl. The landscape setting and the atmospheric vista parallel and were undoubtedly borrowed from more elaborate formats used by academic painters. In a similar way the skillful drawing and modeling of the girl's face evidence some formal training by the artist. The subject's fancy straw hat trimmed with a blue ribbon and the large peach she holds are typical of the everyday objects illustrated in children's portraits during this era. She wears a fashionable blue-dotted white dress and a coral necklace.
ProvenanceFound in Connecticut by Edith Gregor Halpert, Downtown Gallery, New York, NY; bought from Halpert June 30, 1931, by Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, by whom given to CWF in 1939.