The Truant
Artist
Chauncey Bradley Ives
(American, 1810 - 1894)
DateModeled 1871
MediumMarble
DimensionsOverall: 36 5/8 x 17 x 29 3/8 in. (93 x 43.2 x 74.6 cm)
ClassificationsAmerican art
Credit LineGift of James H. Ricau and Museum purchase
Object number86.482
Terms
- Girl
- Youth
- truancy
- School
- innocence
- White
- Neoclassical
On View
On viewLabel TextChauncey Bradley Ives American (1810-1894) The Truant, modeled 1871 Marble Gift of James H. Ricau and Museum purchase 86.482 Sentimental childhood subjects held a strong appeal for nineteenth-century audiences, and America's neoclassical sculptors responded to that market with numerous images of children at play. Ives' The Truant offers a mischievous twist to the theme. Here a barefoot girl- perhaps nine or ten years old- has been distracted by a sea shell on her way to school. Stopping to rest on a rocky outcropping and lifting the shell to her ear, she is captivated by the sound of the ocean. Her straw hat and school books -emblems of responsibility- lay forgotten at her side. Her disheveled dress further confirms her carefree attitude. As such, she offers a lighthearted challenge to the diligent school boy in Joseph Mozier's Young America, on view at left. Contemporary viewers relished such behavioral opposites and would have smiled knowingly at both visions of childhood innocence.
Pair/Pair