Elizabeth Flucker
Artist
Unknown
CultureAmerican
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)
Overall, Frame: 51 1/4 x 40 1/8 in. (130.2 x 101.9 cm)
Credit LineGift of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch
Object number80.181.18
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 ProvenanceThe sitter's mother, Jemima Flucker; her daughter/the sitter, Elizabeth Child; Mary Stiles, daughter of Elizabeth Child; 1920, her granddaughter, Elizabeth Allen; inherited by a family member; Victor Spark, New York City, 1947; the Garbisches, 1947; Gift of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch to the Chrysler Museum, 1980. Exhibition History"American Primitive Paintings," Kunstmuseum, Lucerne, Switzerland, June 19 - Oct. 3, 1954; Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna, Austria, Oct. 27 - Nov. 20, 1954; Municipal Museum, Dortmund, Germany, Dec. 10, 1954 - Jan. 3, 1955; America House, Munich, Germany, Jan. 8 - Feb. 6, 1955; Liljevalch Gallery, Stockholm, Sweden, Feb. 20 - March 15, 1955; Kunstnernes Haus, Oslo, Norway, March 26 - April 17, 1955; Manchester City Art Gallery, Manchester, England, May 4 - May 30, 1955; Whitechapel Gallery, London, England, June 3 - July 3, 1955; Trier Museum, Trier, Germany, Aug. 7 - Sept. 5, 1955. (Exhib. cat. no. 6, as "Bildnis der Jemima Flucker"). "Democratic Designs: American Folk Paintings from the Chrysler Museum," Willoughby-Baylor House, Norfolk, VA, August 16, 2014 - April 5, 2015. "American Appetite: Selections from the Chrysler Museum of Art," Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, Virginia Beach, VA, February 6 - June 6, 2021.Published ReferencesChrysler Museum. "Recent Garbisch Gifts," _Chrysler Museum Bulletin_. Vol. 10, no. 10. 10/1980. Jefferson C. Harrison, _The Chrysler Museum Handbook of the European and American Collections: Selected Paintings, Sculpture and Drawings_ (Norfolk: The Chrysler Museum, 1991), plate 55, p. 74.
