New photography by Ed Pollard captured with a digital camera-2008.

Portrait of the Isaac Potts Family

Artist Unknown

Dateca. 1810

MediumOil on canvas

Dimensions18 3/4 x 23 5/8 in. (47.6 x 60 cm)
Overall, Frame: 22 x 26 3/4 in. (55.9 x 67.9 cm)

ClassificationsAmerican art

Credit LineGift of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch

Object number78.633.11

Terms

People
Family
Portrait
Green
Gray
White
Black
Blue
Red
Yellow
Pink
American naive
Folk art
Pennsylvania?

On View

Not on view

DescriptionOil on canvas, mounted on board (possibly masonite?) painting. It is a domestic family portrait in the spirit of a traditional conversation piece. On the left, the mother steadies the youngest child: a girl with a white dress and matching bonnet stands on a chair while playing a small drum. Near the center in the foreground, the young boy races across the room with a rolling hoop, trundling with the dowel in one hand and holding his black hat in the other. The eldest child, a young girl with red hair wearing the same white dress as her sister, receives a new bonnet from her father. In her right hand she holds a jumping rope; her old bonnet is lying on the ground as she accepts the new bonnet with the left hand. The father is at the far right of the canvas, and one hand leans on a wooden desk. Above the father's head a dark green drapery is pulled back. On the paneled rear wall, two brass drapery knobs flank a landscape painting of a bridge over water.

Label TextUnknown American 19th century Portrait of the Isaac Potts Family, ca. 1810 Oil on canvas Gift of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch 78.633.11 Despite its small size and simple composition, the Potts family portrait delightfully evokes the pleasures of family life in the early nineteenth century. Working at a standup desk at right, the father turns to offer his daughter a new bonnet -her old one lies forgotten on the floor. The mother attends to the youngest child at left. On the wall behind them is a tiny religious landscape showing a pilgrim leading a heavily laden donkey. The little picture-within-a-picture reminds the viewer that the virtues of diligence and piety are qualities required for a happy, prosperous domestic life. This type of informal portrayal of a family at home is called a "conversation piece." It was a popular format for group portraits in the first decades of the nineteenth century, just before the invention of photography.