Samuel Warren Holland, Aged Two Years
19th century
Medium
Painting
Classification
Painting
Department
Smithsonian Collection
Museum
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Credit
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Herbert Waide Hemphill, Jr. and museum purchase made possible by Ralph Cross Johnson
Accession Number
1986.65.119
Tags
About this artwork
This image of a young boy has been attributed to the artist Milton Hopkins, who painted portraits in New York State and Ohio during the first half of the nineteenth century. We know little about the sitter, Samuel Holland, because there were several people of the same name living in the United States at that time. The artist painted a whip to show that the child was male, a necessary symbol in a period when boys wore skirts until they were five or six. The boy gazes directly at the viewer w...