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A man, woman, four children, and a black and white dog stand and sit in a row in a wallpapered room with a checkerboard patterned floor in this horizontal painting. The woman and children have pale, peach skin and the man has a ruddier complexion. The man stands to our left wearing a tall, black, brimmed hat, a black coat, a high-necked white shirt or kerchief at the neck, and knee-length breeches over white stockings. His pointed shoes and breeches have silver and gold buckles. He stands with his body angled to our right but he turns to look at us. He tucks his right hand, closer to us, into the opening of his jacket and he clasps the hand of a young girl with his other. This young girl and the three other children all have blond hair and green eyes, and all wear white, scooped-neck garments. The girl holding the man’s hand turns to look up at him, and she touches his coat with her other hand. To our right, another child swings a ball at the end of a long string for the small dog who leaps up for it. Near the right edge of the painting, a woman sits in a high-backed, upholstered chair with a baby on her lap and a toddler leaning on her legs. The fabric of the chair is patterned with brown and white stripes, with a vine pattern on the white stripes. The woman’s body is angled to our left, and she looks in that direction, almost in profile. She wears a ruffled white bonnet, a long black dress with white at the neck and elbow-length cuffs, and a strand of gold-colored beads. She has brown eyes and rosy cheeks, and her pink lips are closed. The baby sitting in the woman’s lap reaches for the ear of the toddler leaning on the far side of the chair, elbows propped on the woman’s legs. A door behind the man is ajar, leading into another room with a diamond-patterned floor. The wall running behind the group has brown paneling along the bottom half and the top half is patterned with pine-green diamonds on a seafoam-green background. Two wooden chairs with upholstered seats sit against the wall behind the children. Above the chairs, a window opens onto a landscape with a tree, fence, and hills painted in peanut brown and beige. A rust-red curtain has been pulled up and to the sides of the window, which is flanked by two bird cages, each holding one butterscotch-yellow bird. The floor is made up of a checkerboard pattern of harvest yellow and brown squares that have been painted with wavy lines to suggest texture or pattern. The perspective of the room is flattened, and the proportions of some of the people are a little off, especially the man, whose head seems too large for his body. The poses of the people are also stiff, though some of them are connected by gestures.

American 19th Century

The Sargent Family, 1800

Not on View

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 97.2 x 127.8 cm (38 1/4 x 50 5/16 in.)

framed: 111.1 x 142.2 x 7.3 cm (43 3/4 x 56 x 2 7/8 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch

Accession Number

1953.5.49

Artists / Makers

American 19th Century (artist)

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
Read our full Open Access policy for images .

Provenance

Descended in the Sargent family to Martha Gertrude Farner Cork (great-granddaughter of Martha [Patty] Hills Sargent, the mother in the portrait, and granddaughter of Martha [Patty] Hills Sargent [later Mrs. Jehiel Smith], the child holding her father's hand), Waukesha, Wisconsin; given to her granddaughter, Gertrude Louise Cork Swezey, Coxsackie, New York, sometime before 17 June 1941.[1] Purchased in 1953, possibly with (Thurston Thacher, Hyde Park, New York) as agent, by Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch; gift to NGA, 1953.

[1] According to an affidavit of that date, signed by Mrs. Cork (who was ninety-seven years of age at that time), in NGA curatorial files.

Associated Names

Cork, Martha Gertrude Farner
Garbisch, Edgar William, Mr. and Mrs.
Sargent family
Swezey, Gertrude Louise Cork

Exhibition History

1954: American Primitive Painting from the Collection of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch, Part I, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1954, no. 32.

1955: American Primitive Pantings, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1955.

1956: American Primitive Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1956, no. 28.

1957: American Primitive Paintings from the Collection of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch, Part II, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1957.

1961: 101 Masterpieces of American Primitive Painting from the Collection of E.W. and B.C. Garbisch, traveling exh. by the Amer. Federation of Arts, New York, 1961-1964, no. 33, color repro. First venue: The Metropolitan Musuem of Art, N.Y.

1967: Fifty Masterpieces of American Primitive Painting from the Collection of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch, Society of the Four Arts, Palm Beach, Florida, 1967, no catalogue.

1968: American Naive Painting of the 18th and 19th Centuries: 111 Masterpieces from the Collection of E.W. and B.C. Garbisch, traveling exh. by Amer. Fed. of Arts, N.Y., 1968-1970, no. 31, repro. First venue: Grand Palais, Paris.

1970: American Naive Painting of the 18th and 19th Centuries: Masterpieces from the Collection of E.W. and B.C. Garbisch, organized by the Amer. Fed. of Arts, N.Y., and Mainichi News., Nihobashi Mitsukoshi, Tokyo, 1970, no catalogue.

1970: The New World: 1620-1970, Chrysler Art Museum, Provincetown, Massachusetts, 1970, no. 7.

1975: The World of Franklin and Jefferson, traveling exhibition circulated by the American Revolution Bicentennial Administration, 6 venues (Paris, Warsaw, London, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles), 1975-1977, not in catalogue.

1977: Kaleidescope of American Painting, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City Missouri 1977-1978, no. 18.

1978: The American Folk Art Tradition: Paintings from the Garbisch Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1978.

1980: Small Folk: A Celebration of Childhood in America, organized by Museum of American Folk Art, NGA loans shown at The New-York Historical Society, New York, 1980-1981, 51, no. 109, color repro. (catalogue. by Sandra Brant and Elissa Cullman).

1981: American Naive Paintings from the National Gallery of Art, Terra Museum of American Art, Evanston, Illinois, 1981-1982, no. 5.

1986: New and Different: Domestic Interiors in Eighteenth-Century America, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, 1986-1987, no catalogue.

1988: A Little Bestiary: Naive Paintings from the Collection of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch, Montclair Art Museum, New Jersey, 1988, no catalogue.

1994: Extended loan for use by Secretary Richard Riley, U.S. Department of Education, Washington, D.C., 1994-2000.

2004: American Fancy: Exuberance in the Arts, 1790-1840, Milwaukee Art Museum; Peabody Essex Museum, Salem; Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore, 2004-2005, not in catalogue.

2007: Samuel McIntire: Carving an American Style, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, 2007-2008, unnumbered catalogue, fig. 5-80, as The Sargent Family of Charlestown, Massachusetts.

Bibliography

1956: Little, Nina Fletcher. "An Approach to Furnishing." Antiques 69-70 (July 1956): 45.

1959: Bouton, Margaret. American Painting in the National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C., 1959 (Booklet Number One in Ten Schools of Painting in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.): 12, color repro.

1968: Little, Nina Fletcher. "The Conversation Piece in Folk Art." Antiques 67 (November 1968): 746, fig. 11.

1969: McClinton, Katherine Morrison. "American Furniture in Family Portraits." Apollo 89 (March 1969): 226-227.

1970: American Paintings and Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1970: 150, repro.

1971: Bihalji-Merin, Oto. Masters of Naive Art. New York, 1971: color repro., 47.

1971: Peterson, Harold L. Americans at Home. New York, 1971: color pl. 14.

1978: King, Marian. Adventures in Art: National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1978: 71, pl. 42.

1980: American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1980: 296, repro.

1980: Mayhew, Edgar de N., and Minor Myers, Jr. A Documentary History of American Interiors from the Colonial Era to 1915. New York, 1980: color pl. 6.

1984: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 538, no. 813, color repro.

1989: Gere, Charlotte. Nineteenth-Century Decoration: The Art of the Interior. London, 1989: 139, color pl. 149.

1990: Garrett, Elisabeth Donaghy. At Home: The American Family 1750-1870. New York, 1990: color repro. 74.

1992: American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 426, repro.

1992: Chotner, Deborah, with contributions by Julie Aronson, Sarah D. Cash, and Laurie Weitzenkorn. American Naive Paintings. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1992: 588-590, color repro. 589.

2007: Lahikainen, Dean T. "A McIntire Restoration: The East Parlor in the Peirce-Nichols House, Salem, Massachusetts." Antiques (December 2007): 87, fig. 18.