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- 19th Century American Painting
- Emily Moulton , 1852
- oil on canvas
- 40 3/4 in. x 27 5/8 in. (103.51 cm x 70.17 cm)
- Samuel Miller (circa 1807 - 1853)
- American
- Museum Purchase: Currier Funds and Ruth W. Higgins Memorial Fund, 1976.27
- On View
Interpretive text from Exploring American Art: An Online Resource for the American Collections
Middle-class Bostonians of the 1840s and 1850s had many artists to choose from if they wanted to have their portraits painted. They could hire Chester Harding (1792-1866) or Francis Alexander (1800-1880) for a formal portrait in the tradition that stretched back to Gilbert Stuart (q.v.) and, before him, to John Singleton Copley (q.v.). They could hire William Matthew Prior (1806-1873) or a member of his large workshop for an academic picture or, if they wished to economize, for "a likeness without shade or shadow at one quarter price." They also could hire Samuel Miller of Charlestown, Massachusetts, who (if the seventeen or so portraits now ascribed to Miller are a fair sample) specialized in full-length portraits of children, often shown with family pets and stylized flower arrangements. The painting Emily Moulton, a full-length likeness of a little girl in a black dress and black lace-up slippers, with blue ribbons in her hair and a red book in her hand, is his masterpiece.
The inscription on the back of Emily Moulton identified the artist of a group of portraits that feature flat, frontal, stiffly posed figures, generally with full-cheeked, squarish faces and prominent ears. (The blue-green tinge to the flesh tones in these portraits, probably coming from the underpaint with which Miller prepared his canvases, is also typical.) Details of costume and accessory clearly delighted Miller, who in Emily Moulton took special pains with the figure's red patterned stockings, her lace pantaloons, her bracelet, and the double strand of beads at her neck. The portrait's delightful decorative quality is enhanced by the fanciful landscape visible through the window at right, and on the window ledge, the equally fancifully shaped urn holding a cheerful arrangement of garden flowers.
According to family history, the sitter in this portrait is Emily A. Moulton of Charlestown, Massachusetts. Emily was one of five children of Andrew and Anne Moulton, and the second of four girls. She was born in 1834 and, if this is indeed Emily, would have been eighteen years old when this portrait was painted. Clearly the sitter here is younger than eighteen, raising the question as to whether the portrait in fact represents one of the younger Moulton daughters or shows someone else entirely.
CT
REFERENCES
J. G. "Recent Acquisitions: Samuel Miller." Currier Gallery of Art Bulletin, 1977, p. 27.
Paul S. d'Ambrosio and Charlotte M. Emans. Folk Art's Many Faces: Portraits in the New York State Historical Association. Cooperstown, NY: New York State Historical Association, 1987, pp. 111-17.
