Child with Dog Folk Art Portrait Painting

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Child with Dog Folk Art Portrait Painting

About the Item

New Hampshire. Oil on Canvas, lined, and museum backed in a gilt frame. The blue-eyed subject is seen full length seated with a dog. Holding a rattle in her right hand she wears red and blue shoes with knee socks and a salmon colored dress with a white patterned apron and a double strand of coral beads.
Signed U. D. Tenney (1826-1905) Tenney was a New Hampshire portrait artist starting at a young age and working throughout the 19th century with over 200 works listed by the Smithsonian and National Portrait Gallery, currently in collections of Yale Art Museum, New Hampshire State House, Hood Museum. Tenney is most highly regarded for a portrait of John Wilkes Booth as well as a full length portrait of the 14th U.S. President Franklin Pierce.
This child’s portrait dates from Tenneys first attempts at portraiture. This portrait also shows Tenney's difficulty with anatomy, especially evident in the placement of the child's legs. Without academic training artists oftentimes had difficulty painting body parts in correct proportion to each other. With disproportionate heads, limbs and torsos, bodies often appeared disjointed and not all together convincing. The number of strands in the child’s necklace suggests her to be two years of age. In this portrait Tenney captured the essence of childhood innocence, and delicacy in the child’s expression with a very endearing quality.
Though many American child’s portraits depicted boys in dresses, it can be difficult to assign a specific gender. Characteristics of both boys and girls are found in this single painting. The necklace and the inclusion of a rattle would lead one to believe the portrait to be of a girl since girls more often than boys wear jewelry and have rattles in there portraits, (as opposed to a book, whip or pull toy). However the dog and the side parted hair are attributes of boys. The gender of this child may never be fully attributable to that of a little girl since the name of the sitter remains unknown. Portraits of the period were often times painted on muted or plain backgrounds with a single horizontal line to achieve depth. Provenance: Peter Tillou, Litchfield CT

Dimensions:
Height: 35 in (88.9 cm)Width: 30 in (76.2 cm)
Materials and Techniques:
Canvas
Place of Origin:
United States
Period:
19th Century
Date of Manufacture:
circa 1844-1849
Condition:
Excellent, with 3 areas of smaller than dime-sized in painting in the background only and a small 1" repair on the far left background.
Seller Location:
Woodbury, CT
Reference Number:
1stDibs: 1201098959213