The Taylor Children

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The Taylor Children

Artist Ralph Earl (American, 1751-1801)

Date1796

DimensionsFrame: 50 7/8 × 50 7/8 × 2 3/4 in. (129.2 × 129.2 × 7 cm)

MediumOil on canvas

ClassificationPaintings

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the Florence Scott Libbey Bequest in Memory of her Father, Maurice A. Scott

Object number

1965.1

On View

Toledo Museum of Art (2445 Monroe Street), Gallery, 29

Label TextHaving 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.Published ReferencesOrcutt, S., History of the Towns of New Milford and Bridgewater, Connecticut, 1703-1882, Hartford, 1882, p. 775.

Sherman, F., "An Early and a Late Portrait by Ralph Earl," Art in America, XXIV, Apr. 1936, p. 86, 91, repr. p. 87.

Sherman, F., "The Painting of Ralph Earl," Art in America, XXVIII, Oct. 1939, pp. 173, 178, no. 67.

Norman-Wilcox, G., "American Furniture, Noteworthy and Unrecorded," Antiques, vol. XXXVI, no. 6, Dec. 1939, pp. 282-285, repr. p. 284, fig. 4.

"The Ralph Earl Exhibition," Art in America, vol. XXXIV, no. 1, Jan. 1946, repr. p. 39.

Wunderlich, R., "Recorders, Deceivers and Dreamers," The Kennedy Quarterly, V, Jan. 1965, p. 88, repr. p. 89.

"New Accessions, U.S.A.," Gazette Des Beaux-Arts, vol. 67, no. 1165, Feb. 1966, p. 59, repr. no. 229.

Young, Mahonri Sharp, "From Howling Wilderness to Queensborough Bridge," Apollo, vol. 86, no. 70, Dec. 1967, p. 496, repr. fig. 1.

Goodrich, L., Ralph Earl, Recorder for an Era, New York, 1967, p. 80, repr. p. 81.

"Treasures for Toledo," The Toledo Museum of Art Museum News, vol. 12, no. 4, Winter, 1969, p. 117, repr.

"Treasures for Toledo," The Connoisseur, vol. 173, no. 698, April 1970, p. 301, repr. no. 10.

Toledo Museum of Art, The Toledo Museum of Art, American Paintings, Toledo, 1979, p. 43, pl. 5.

Kornhauser, Elizabeth M., Ralph Earl: the Face of the Young Republic, New Haven, 1991, p. 161.

Exhibition HistoryLos Angeles County Museum Loan Exhibition of American Furniture, etc., 1939.

New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Ralph Earl, 1751-1801, 1945, no. 40, repr.

Worcester Art Museum, Ralph Earl, 1751-1801, 1945-1946, no. 40, repr.

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