The Hayes Family

Date1835

Attributed to Joseph H. Davis (1811-1865)

Mediumwatercolor, ink, and graphite on wove paper

DimensionsPrimary Support: 10 3/4 x 15 9/16in. (27.3 x 39.5cm); Composition, including lower margin inscription: 10 x 15 1/8in. (25.4 x 38.4cm); Pictorial composition, excluding lower margin inscription: 8 15/16 x 15 1/8in. (22.7 x 38.4cm); and Framed: 15 x 19 7/8 x 1/2in.

Credit LineGift of Juli Grainger

Object number2008.300.2

DescriptionA triple portrait of a man, woman, and baby, the latter on the woman's lap, all the figures shown seated, full-length, and nearly in profile (the bodies are turned very slightly). The man and woman sit in flamboyantly painted side chairs and face one another with a grain-painted table between and slightly behind them. The furnishings rest on a strip of painted floor, floor cloth, or woven carpeting displayed a bold repetitive design of an oval medallion on a green field; the rectangles of the floor design all slant to the right, reading from left to right. Other, matching, narrower strips appear above and below the floor design (the upper suggesting a base board, the lower appearing above a lower margin reserve). On the table are a book, a top hat (turned upside down), and a platter of fruit. Both adults are dressed in black with white details (his shirt, her bonnet and apron), and she wears a pale blue kerchief. A triple swag of greenery hangs on the wall above the table. An inscription appears in the lower margin reserve.
The 2 1/8-inch splayed red-painted frame is a period replacement.
Label TextThe portrait's exuberantly decorated furnishings are typical of the artist, who depicted his many sitters' chairs, tables, and floors in a variety of colors and patterns without precisely repeating himself. Whether he thought of the latter elements as painted floorboards, painted floor cloths, or woven carpeting is undetermined and probably unimportant; for Davis, the point of his settings was not realism so much as gaiety. Accurate optical perspective was also beside the point. Some of his floor designs are tipped up and shown at a right angle to the line of the viewer's gaze, while others, like the Hayes's, consist of motifs that all slant in one direction.
Flourished inscriptions contribute to the overall decorative quality of most of Davis's portraits. As illustrated here, phrases slant alternately right and upright to form an eye-catching contrapuntal effect, while the letters themselves are decoratively embellished.
Joseph Hayes (1783-1872) married Lois Demeritt (1790-1878) on 7 January 1808. Both of them died in Dover, New Hampshire, although all of their children were born in the town of Strafford. (Dover and Strafford are both in Strafford County). The baby shown on Mrs. Hayes's lap was the youngest of the couple's twelve children: Asa Brewster Hayes (1835-1842). Joseph H. Davis also painted at least four of Lois Hayes's Demeritt cousins. The newspaper in Joseph Hayes's hands, Zion's Herald, was an independent Methodist paper published by the Boston Wesleyan Association.
InscribedIn black ink in flourished script in the lower margin is, at left, "Joseph Hayes Aged 52. 1835." and, at right, "Lois Hayes Aged 45, 1835". Between the two foregoing inscriptions, on two lines, is "Asa B, Hayes/Aged 4 months. 1835". N. B. The references to the adults are slanted to the right, the baby's to the left, forming a visually pleasing contrapuntal arrangement.
The book on the table is inscribed on the spine in block letters in ink "HOLY/BIBLE".
The newspaper held in the man's hands is inscribed at the top in ink in block letters "ZION'S HERALD". [The remaining text on the front page of the newspaper is mock writing].
On the back of the primary support in pencil is: "4341/11 x 15 2 [the '2' is raised, as though squaring the '15']/440" the meaning of which is unknown. Also in pencil on the back of the primary support is "a g. Hayes/202 [word illegible]".

ProvenanceFrom a New Haven, Conn., descendant of the subjects' family (see n. 1 below); to Peter H. Tillou, Litchfield, Conn.; sold by Tillou at auction at Sotheby Parke Bernet, 26 October 1985; bought at the foregoing auction by CWF's donor.

n. 1: Tillou's catalogue claims he acquired the portrait from a descendant of the subjects' family in New Haven, but Savage, Savage, and Sparks ("Bibliography"), p. 59, states that the portrait was "acquired in Massachusetts" (ostensibly by Tillou).