New photography by Pat Cagney captured with a digital camera.

Elizabeth Flucker

Artist Unknown

Dateca. 1785

MediumOil on canvas

DimensionsOverall: 45 1/8 x 33 15/16 in. (114.6 x 86.2 cm)
Overall, Frame: 51 1/4 x 40 1/8 in. (130.2 x 101.9 cm)

ClassificationsAmerican art

Credit LineGift of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch

Object number80.181.18

Terms

Girl
Blue
White
Brown
Pink
American naive
Boston, MA

On View

Not on view

DescriptionThis is an oil on canvas painting. It is a full-length portrait of a young girl, Elizabeth Flucker. She is dressed in a blue satin frock trimmed in white and tied loosely at the waist with a pink satin sash. The floral spray in her hair is probably a piece of jewelry, a delicate enamel and silver ornament called a tremblant (a French term that alludes to the fact that the ornament trembled, and shimmered, when the wearer moved). In her right hand she holds a sprig of cherries and on her left, a pet bird. She is shown out-of-doors in the foreground of a hilly landscape; a tree frames the composition at left.

Label Textleft Elizabeth Flucker, ca. 1785 American Oil on canvas right Attributed to Joseph Badger American, 1708–1765 Portrait of a Child, ca. 1750 Oil on canvas In the full-length, life-size portrait to the left, young Betsy Flucker (b. 1779) holds a goldfinch, a popular pet in this period, and a cluster of cherries, a symbol of girlhood innocence. She wears the latest fashions, including a silver, floral hair ornament popular in France. Her pose echoes the work of earlier Boston painter Joseph Badger, likely the maker of the work to the right. By commissioning such a portrait, the affluent Flucker family from Cambridge, Massachusetts, announced their sophisticated European tastes and their respect for local artistic traditions. Gifts of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch 80.181.18 and 74.6.10