The Taylor Children
Artist: Ralph Earl (American, 1751-1801)
Date: 1796
Dimensions:
Frame: 50 7/8 × 50 7/8 × 2 3/4 in. (129.2 × 129.2 × 7 cm)
Medium: Oil on canvas
Classification: Paintings
Credit Line: Purchased with funds from the Florence Scott Libbey Bequest in Memory of her Father, Maurice A. Scott
Object number: 1965.1
Label Text:Having one’s portrait painted was an important way to express social status and to preserve family history. This portrait of the children of apothecary and naval officer Colonel Nathaniel Taylor (1753–1818) and his wife Ann Northrup (1751–1810) expresses the New Milford, Connecticut, family’s affluence and social aspirations.
John (19 years old), who became a merchant in New Milford, wears a gentlemanly riding outfit. Charlotte (14), who married David Sherman Boardman, a prominent judge, wears an expensive satin dress and pearls. Nathaniel William (10), who graduated from Yale in 1807 and later taught at Yale Divinity School, wears a velvet suit with brass buttons and wide lace collar. The trio is posed before a landscape that represents the family as landowners—the primary measure of wealth in 18th-century America.
Ralph Earl, who charged as much as 60 dollars for a portrait—a large sum in 1796 America—also painted single portraits of the parents. Despite the prices he could command, he struggled with alcoholism and would die in poverty in 1801, only five years after painting this portrait.
John (19 years old), who became a merchant in New Milford, wears a gentlemanly riding outfit. Charlotte (14), who married David Sherman Boardman, a prominent judge, wears an expensive satin dress and pearls. Nathaniel William (10), who graduated from Yale in 1807 and later taught at Yale Divinity School, wears a velvet suit with brass buttons and wide lace collar. The trio is posed before a landscape that represents the family as landowners—the primary measure of wealth in 18th-century America.
Ralph Earl, who charged as much as 60 dollars for a portrait—a large sum in 1796 America—also painted single portraits of the parents. Despite the prices he could command, he struggled with alcoholism and would die in poverty in 1801, only five years after painting this portrait.
On view
In Collection(s)