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A young, round-cheeked, pale-skinned child wears a red dress and sits in front of a landscape in this vertical portrait painting. Her dark blond hair is parted down the middle and pulled to the sides to make ear-length ringlets that frame her square face. She has faint, arched brows, wide-set, large blue eyes, a tiny nose, and a bow-shaped mouth over a bulb-like chin. The garnet-red dress is patterned with rows of tiny black dots. The bodice has a straight neckline and slate-blue bows over short sleeves. The child’s pink stockings and black shoes tied with bows peek out from the long hem of the skirt, where one foot kicks up and the other points toes down as if swinging her feet back and forth. She gently holds a toy rabbit, which has gray fur, pink eyes, and a pink collar, with one hand in her lap. The other hand cups lightly against her chest. A burgundy-red curtain hangs behind her, filling the top third of the background. A tan-colored column, wider than the girl’s shoulders, is immediately behind the curtain, and trees and shrubs reach into the distance under a pink-streaked blue sky.

William Matthew Prior

Little Miss Fairfield, 1850

Not on View

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 61 x 50.9 cm (24 x 20 1/16 in.)

framed: 67.9 x 57.4 x 5 cm (26 3/4 x 22 5/8 x 1 15/16 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch

Accession Number

1971.83.9

Artists / Makers

William Matthew Prior (artist) American, 1806 - 1873

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
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Inscription

on reverse (no longer visible, photograph in NGA curatorial files): Child of Fairfield, Esqr. By W. M. Prior, Jan. 1850; 36 Trenton St.

Exhibition History

1978: The American Folk Art Tradition: Paintings from the Garbisch Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1978.

1980: Small Folk: A Celebration of Childhood in America, organized by Museum of American Folk Art, NGA loans shown at The New-York Historical Society, New York, 1980-1981, no. 219, color repro. (cat. by Sandra Brant and Elissa Cullman).

1981: American Naive Paintings from the National Gallery of Art, Terra Museum of American Art, Evanston, Illinois, 1981-1982, no. 1, color repro. on cover (cat. by Ronald McKnight Melvin).

1985: American Naive Paintings from the National Gallery of Art, traveling exh. by the International Exhibitions Foundation, Washington, 1985-1987, no. 50, color repro. Fist venue: Museum of American Folk Art, New York.

1988: La Nascita di Una Nazione: Pittori americani dalla National Gallery of Art di Washington 1730-1880, Palazzo Pepoli Campogrande, Bologna; Galleria Internazionale d'Arte Moderna di Ca'Pesaro, Venice, 1988-1989, no. 50, repro.

2012: Artist and Visionary: William Matthew Prior Revealed, Fenimore Art Museum, New York State Historical Association, Cooperstown; American Folk Art Museum, New York, 2012, no. 39, repro.

Little Miss Fairfield, 1850

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Exhibition History

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